MAGNITUDE AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS OF EARLY MORTALITY AMONG DEATHS IN ADULT EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT, AT PUBLIC HOSPITALS, HAWASSA, SIDAMA, ETHIOPIA,2023.

Abstract

Background: early mortality defined as death with 72 hours of emergency department presentation. In low-income countries with limited resources, adult emergency department mortality remains high. The majority (59.8%) of those deaths occur within the first three days of admission to the emergency department in Ethiopia. Previously, only single-center studies at tertiary hospitals were conducted in Ethiopia. Objective: to assess the magnitude and associated factors of early mortality among deaths in adult emergency departments at selected public hospitals in Hawassa, Sidama, Ethiopia, from January 2021 to December 2022. Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional study design was applied. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select 369 charts of patients who died in adult emergency departments of selected public hospitals in two years. The data was collected using a pre-tested data abstraction tool entered into the Kobo toolbox, then entered into EpiData version 4.6.0 and exported to SPSS version 27 for analysis. By using binary logistic regression Bivariate and multivariate analyses were run. Finally, statistical significance was declared at p-value <0.05, and an adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval was used to report the strength of the association Result: This study result shows that 50.2% of the participants were between the ages of 25-54 with mean average 40.6 ± 17.5 and 67.7% were male. 288 (78%) died within 72 hours. Lack of prehospital care [(AOR = 4.2; 95% CI: 2.23, 7.87), P = 0.007], road traffic accidents [(AOR = 4.1; 95% CI: 1.403, 12.076), P = 0.013], red triage categories [(AOR = 3.9; 95% CI: 1.6, 9.4), P = 0.003], had lack of investigation[(AOR = 3.4; 95% CI: 1.2, 9.4), comorbid illness [(AOR = 3.2; 95% CI: 1.558, 6.49), P = 0.001] and delayed initial intervention [(AOR = 2.338; 95% CI: 1.259, 4.339), P = 0.007] were significantly associated with early mortality. Conclusion: In this study, a greater early mortality rate was detected. Early morality was increased by a lack of prehospital treatment, road traffic accidents, a red warning score, a lack of investigation, comorbidity, and a delay in the first intervention.