[Causes and trends of mortality in a Spanish prison (1994-2009)]

There are a few mortality researches in prisons. To know this measure can to be important for take decisions of Public Health. The aim of the paper is to describe mortality and its trend in our prison.

This is a descriptive and retrospective study of the deaths between 01/01/1994 and 31/12/2009. Two periods of 8 years have been compared through exact test of Fisher in order to detect changes in causes of mortality. First of all, we made an indirect standardization of rates and compare mortality in our institution with other Spanish prisons. Through linear regression model we have settled in trends of mortality rates.

Had 59 deaths, 58 in men with a median age 34.9 years old (28.7- 40.4). 64,4% were HIV+ . From 1994 to 2001 the main cause of mortality was VIH infection (48.6%) the second one was cardiovascular event (10.8%), while that between 2002 and 2009 this trend have change, cardiovascular event caused (31.8%) and VIH infection (22.07%) (p=0.026).The annual crude mortality rate decreased -0.485 deaths ‰ inmates/year (IC 95%: -0.864 to -0.107). Standardizing rates, we get 42 deaths expected for the wholly period, with Standarized Mortality Ratio of 1.407 (I.C. 95%: 1.071 to 1.816).

The main cause of mortality has been no-HIV diseases, among these mainly cardiovascular events. The trend of mortality rate has been decreasing although we observe 40.7% plus of deaths than we would expect.