Daily distribution of death incidents concerning patients with neuropsychiatric disorders who were being treated in a psychiatric clinic

Background

The aim of this study was to convey a research as to whether the deaths of patients that suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders and receive medical treatment in a mental clinic, can be related to certain times of the day and night, on a 24-hour basis.

Material and method

The study concerned 182 decedents, who suffered from organic psycho syndromes, dementia, psychotic syndromes and emotional disorders. The average age of the decedents was 81.9 years old. The study concerned 182 decedents, in a total of 1265 patients (that were being hospitalized for the first time) within a 2-year period. The women patients were 616 and the men were 549. The patients mentioned above also presented morbidity in other pathological diseases like coronary disease, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cerebral vascular accidents (CVA) and neoplasias. The research was conducted during a 2-year period, and it was in this time-period that the patients mentioned above died, while they were being treated in the psychiatric clinic "Ippokration". Every 24 hour period was split in two. The first time period was from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and the second was from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. of the next day. This method has been used in many other researches according to the international bibliography.

Results

A difference was noticed, as to the number of deaths in each one of the two time-periods set. 107 deaths occurred between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., whereas 75 deaths occurred from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. of the following day. This difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). 118 of the decedents were women and 64 of them were men. However, there was a significant difference if we take into account the fact that more women died between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. (74 deaths) than those who died between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. (44 deaths). This finding was considered statistically significant (p < 0.05) and is the outcome of the present study.

Discussion

The current study suggests that patients died between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m were mainly female.