Abstract:
Background: Mortalities in the health care set up are prevalent, and causes are multifactorial with variations from
area to area and also from ward to ward in the same health care set up. Analysis of mortalities and its causes in
Ethiopian hospitals including Dessie Referral Hospital is not adequately known. Thus, the aim of this study is to
determine the prevalence of mortalities and its causes in the Dessie Referral Hospital, Northeast Ethiopia.
Methods: A retrospective analysis of mortalities during a three year period (September 2010–2012) was conducted
in the Dessie Referral Hospital from August-September, 2012. All in hospital mortalities in the hospital during the last
three years were included in the study. Data were collected from patient discharge recording books. Finally, data were
entered into SPSS windows version 16.0 and descriptive statistics were generated to meet the study objective.
Results: During the last 3 years there were 1,481 (4.8%) mortalities in the hospital. Around 60.0% of the mortalities
were among male patients, and two third of the mortalities were among patients aged 15 years or older. The majority
of the mortalities (38.9%) were in the medical ward followed by pediatric (34.6%) and surgical (18.2%) wards. Most of
the mortalities (34.8%) occurred during 2011 while least was in 2012 (31.8%). HIV/AIDS (14.8%), pneumonia (9.9%), and
sepsis/shock (7.6%) were the three most common causes of mortality in the hospital during the three year period. On
average, patients stayed for 2.86 (±2. 99) days in the wards before mortality.
Conclusion: Mortalities in the wards of the Dessie Referral Hospital were high and the causes were mainly of infectious
origin, HIV/AIDS and its complications being the most common causes. This calls for an integrated effort to reduce in
hospital mortalities by equipping the hospital and its health care providers with the skills and medical supplies required
for proper management of the most common causes of in hospital mortality reported in this study.
