Accidents and undetermined deaths: re-evaluation of nationwide samples from the Scandinavian countries

Autor: Gunvor Furu Østevold, Øivind Ekeberg, Ingvild Maria Tøllefsen, Karin Helweg-Larsen, Erlend Hem, Marianne Kastrup, Ullakarin Nyberg, Ingemar Thiblin, Sidsel Rogde, Per Henrik Zahl
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2016
Předmět:
Adult
Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Forensic Science
Adolescent
Poison control
Datasets as Topic
Norwegian
Scandinavian and Nordic Countries
Occupational safety and health
03 medical and health sciences
Young Adult
0302 clinical medicine
Environmental health
Cause of Death
Epidemiology
Injury prevention
Medicine
Humans
030212 general & internal medicine
Cause of death
Aged
Undetermined deaths
business.industry
Public health
lcsh:Public aspects of medicine
Public Health
Environmental and Occupational Health

Reproducibility of Results
Reclassification
Public Health
Global Health
Social Medicine and Epidemiology

lcsh:RA1-1270
Middle Aged
medicine.disease
language.human_language
030227 psychiatry
Folkhälsovetenskap
global hälsa
socialmedicin och epidemiologi

Suicide
Accidents
language
Female
Suicide statistics
Medical emergency
Autopsy
Biostatistics
business
Rättsmedicin
Research Article
Zdroj: BMC Public Health, Vol 16, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2016)
BMC Public Health
Tollefsen, I M, Thiblin, I, Helweg-Larsen, K, Hem, E, Kastrup, M, Nyberg, U, Rogde, S, Zahl, P-H, Ostevold, G & Ekeberg, O 2016, ' Accidents and undetermined deaths : re-evaluation of nationwide samples from the Scandinavian countries ', BMC Public Health, vol. 16, 449 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3135-5
ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI: 10.1186/s12889-016-3135-5
Popis: Background National mortality statistics should be comparable between countries that use the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases. Distinguishing between manners of death, especially suicides and accidents, is a challenge. Knowledge about accidents is important in prevention of both accidents and suicides. The aim of the present study was to assess the reliability of classifying deaths as accidents and undetermined manner of deaths in the three Scandinavian countries and to compare cross-national differences. Methods The cause of death registers in Norway, Sweden and Denmark provided data from 2008 for samples of 600 deaths from each country, of which 200 were registered as suicides, 200 as accidents or undetermined manner of deaths and 200 as natural deaths. The information given to the eight experts was identical to the information used by the Cause of Death Register. This included death certificates, and if available external post-mortem examinations, forensic autopsy reports and police reports. Results In total, 69 % (Sweden and Norway) and 78 % (Denmark) of deaths registered in the official mortality statistics as accidents were confirmed by the experts. In the majority of the cases where disagreement was seen, the experts reclassified accidents to undetermined manner of death, in 26, 25 and 19 % of cases, respectively. Few cases were reclassified as suicides or natural deaths. Among the extracted accidents, the experts agreed least with the official mortality statistics concerning drowning and poisoning accidents. They also reported most uncertainty in these categories of accidents. In a second re-evaluation, where more information was made available, the Norwegian psychiatrist and forensic pathologist increased their agreement with the official mortality statistics from 76 to 87 %, and from 85 to 88 %, respectively, regarding the Norwegian and Swedish datasets. Among the extracted undetermined deaths in the Swedish dataset, the two experts reclassified 22 and 51 %, respectively, to accidents. Conclusion There was moderate agreement in reclassification of accidents between the official mortality statistics and the experts. In the majority of cases where there was disagreement, accidents were reclassified as undetermined manner of death, and only a small proportion as suicides.
Databáze: OpenAIRE