[Mortality at an internal medicine department of a tertiary hospital]

The clinical and epidemiological variables as well as conduct parameters, attributable to death cases of the 1,052 patients cared for during one year in an Internal Medicine Department are analyzed. The mortality rate was 11.6%. We may point out in our results the elevated mean age (75.5 +/- 11.2 years) and the high incidence of repeated admissions (46%) among death cases. The mean and median hospital stay values were lower in the patients who died than in those that survived. The more frequent basic causes of death were stroke (27%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (15%) and neoplasias (14%). When analyzing the different conditions within one patient, cardiovascular diseases were most often found amongst those who died (73%). Gastrointestinal and infectious diseases were on the contrary associated to a low mortality rate.