Duration of Hospital Stay and Mortality in the Medical Wards of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Kaduna

Background: Many factors affect mortality among hospitalized patients. These include: - age, sex, diagnosis, types and complexity of co-morbidities, social and economic conditions of the patient and duration of hospital stay. Duration of hospital stay as it affects mortality is studied on our medical wards.
Methods: A two year review of admissions into our medical wards between June 1999 and June 2001 was carried out. Medical records of patients as well as the discharge/death register were used. The SPSS version 10 was used to analyse the data
Results: A total of 179 patients with age range of 12-85 years, mean age of 44.46 years were studied. Twenty (11.2%) of them died. Sixty-five percent of all deaths had occurred by the fifth day of admission, only 15% of all deaths occurred after the 10^th day of admission. The mean duration of hospital stay for those who died was significantly shorter (P<0.01) than that for those who were discharged (4.95 days vs. 12.5days).
Conclusion: The results suggest that duration of hospital stay is strongly linked with the likelihood of death among other factors. Death occurring mostly within the first few days of admission. Improved public health and education, raising the socio-economic status of people and improving the standards of our healthcare facilities and personnel would prevent a large proportion of deaths on our medical wards.