원주기독병원 소아병실 환자의 사망자에 관한 통계적 관찰

Abstract

[한글]

[영문]In 1925, Van Buskirk and Mills attempted to compile accurate statistics of infant and child death in Korea, but their results were unsatisfactory due to poor social conditions and an inadequate health organization.

Despite poor conditions after Liberation, Yun, Park, Won and Cha reported some statistics of infant and child death that enable us to know something of the problem then.

Their figures depended on clinical symptoms and courses which were expected to develop while the patients were living, so the reliability of their figures was questionable and was not applicable to the present situation due to the changes in

social conditions and development.

After the publication of a study of infant and child death in the department of pediatrics of Severance Hospital by Kim et al. in 1965, statistics have been compiled for several hospital in Seoul.

The author has analyzed infant and child mortality of admitted cases in Wonju Christian Hospital, most of which have come from remote areas of Kangwondo, and has tried to correlate the figures to studies in Seoul. The author obtained statistics on 317 patients who died among 3605 patients admitted to the department of pediatrics of Wonju Christian Hospital and classified them according to annual, monthly, sex and age incidence, underlying disease and fatality rate during the past 10 years.

The results were as follows;

1. The mortality rate among the total admitted patients was 8.8%.

2. Among the admitted patients 68.2% were male and 31.8% were female.

3. Infants under one year of age comprised 33.7% of the admissions and 44.5% of the mortalities.

4. Of the mortalities, 71% died within 48 hours admission.

5. Among the admissions, the most frequent disease was gastroenteritis(14.2%), followed by pneumonia(11.2%), tuberculosis(10.1%) and meningitis(5.5%).

6. The most frequent cause of death was pneumonia(11.0%), followed by meningitis(10.7%), prematurity(9.1%), tuberculosis(8.8%) and septicemia(6.6%).

7. The case fatality by disease showed encephalitis(57.1%), birth trauma(47.1%), neonatal tetanus(37.5%), septicemia(36.8%) and congenital anomaly(24.4%).

8. Causes of death according to age were as follows;

A. In neonatal period; The most frequent cause of death was prematurity(33.0%), followed by neonatal tetanus(13.6%), and congenital anomaly(11.4%).

B. From 1 to 12 months of age; The most frequent cause of death was pneumonia(28.3%), followed by meningitis(11.3%).

C. 1 year of age; The most frequent cause of death was gastroenteritis(17.19%).

D. From 2 to 5 years of age; The most frequent cause of death was tuberculosis(17.5%), followed by pneumonia(15.9%).

E. From 6 to 10 years of age; The most frequent cause of death was meningitis and encephalitis(14.5%, respectively).

F. From 11 to 15 years of age; The most frequent cause of death was meningitis(23.3%), followed by encephalitis and accident(10.0%, respectively).