The Manner of Death in a Tertiary Institution, a Window to Life Expectancy: A Retrospective Post-Mortem Study
Imasogie Dele Eradebamwen & Udoh Mojisola
Department of Morbid Anatomy
University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria
E-mail: eradebamwen4real@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
The World Health Organization (WHO) had estimated the average life expectancy of Nigerians to be 54.5 years. It is very likely that a sizeable number of the recorded deaths in our environment could have been prevented thereby increasing the estimated life expectancy by WHO. An objective assessment of the manner of death at post-mortem speaks volume; therefore the aim of this study is to determine the manner of death at post-mortem at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. This was a retrospective post-mortem study that was carried out at the Department of Morbid Anatomy, University of Benin Teaching Hospital over a 2 year period from 1st of January 2013 to 31st of December 2014. The subjects of this study were all post-mortem cases during the period under review. Data was obtained from the hospital and departmental archives. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences, version 20. The manner of death encountered in this study was natural (48.6%), accident (42.7%), homicide (5%), undetermined (3.3%) and suicide deaths (0.3%) in decreasing order of frequency. The mean age for natural death was in the 6th decade while it was in the 4th decade for other categories of manner of death. There was a male preponderance in each category of manner of death. A sizeable number of deaths recorded in this study were largely preventable. To this end, preventive measures are very important in reducing needless death with resultant increase in the life expectancy.
Key word: Manner of death, Natural death, Accidental death, Homicidal death, Suicidal death and undetermined death.
