Chen Jingjing, Chen Xiaoxia, Shi Wenqi, Liu Zifeng, Deng Shumin, Zhou Xiaomei
Objective To analyze the deaths of hospitalized elderly inpatients aged 60 years old and above from 2018 to 2022 in a multidimensional manner, and to understand the composition of their causes of deaths, in order to provide a basis for rational allocation of healthcare resources.Methods Data of 1 716 hospitalized dead patients aged 60 and above registered in the Guangdong Provincial Death Medical Certificate Management Information System of the hospital from 2018 to 2022 were extracted, Mann-Whitney U and chi-square tests were used to statistically analyze the distributional characteristics of variables such as age, gender, and underlying causes of death.Results From 2018 to 2022, the number of geriatric inpatient deaths showed a downward trend year by year, with a male to female sex ratio of 1.67∶1. In all age groups males had a higher rate of death than females, but the difference was not statistically significant (χ2=0.26, P=0.992). The median age at death was 78.0(69.0, 84.0) years old, which was higher in females than in males, and the difference was statistically significant (Z=342.01, P=0.003). In the seasonal distribution, the highest number of deaths occurred in winter, followed by spring, fall, and summer, and the difference was not statistically significant (χ2=5.66, P=0.773). The top 3 leading causes of death of elderly inpatients in the hospital from 2018 to 2022 were circulatory diseases, tumors and respiratory diseases, accounting for 76.34% of the total number of deaths, which were the main types of diseases leading to their deaths, with a decreasing trend in the proportion of deaths caused by tumors and a yearly increase in the proportion of deaths caused by infectious and parasitic diseases. During the study period, the differences in the distribution of the main causes of death by gender, season and age group were all statistically significant (P<0.05).Conclusion Hospitals should rationalize the allocation of medical resources, strengthen the treatment and prevention, control and monitoring of circulatory diseases, tumors, respiratory diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases, and pay particular attention to the treatment and care of elderly males and in winter, so as to reduce the death rate.