A recent meta-analysis of 148 longitudinal studies (308,849 participants, mean age of 64 years) reported a 50percentnt reduction in the likelihood of mortality for individuals with strong social relationships [ 15].
Thus, an important prognostic factor was the severity of their illness, which resulted in an increased likelihood of mortality [ 14, 25].
13 14 15 A study in Vancouver, British Columbia, of women who used injection drugs between 1996 and 2002, the majority of whom were in street based work, showed a 47-fold higher likelihood of mortality in this group compared with an age matched sample of the general population, with homicide being the most common cause of death.
Even after adjusting for patient severity factors mentioned in our previous study, 7 higher likelihood of mortality was still observed in hospitals with fewer cardiologists, from 5.4% in the ≥10 cardiologists group to 10.7% in the group with no cardiologists (figure 1).
We evaluated the incidence of PIH and created a logistic regression model to determine the likelihood of mortality in the PIH and non-PIH groups after controlling for gender, age, intubator, mechanism of trauma, injury severity, traumatic brain injury and volume of fluid administered.
One cause of concern was that depression not only elevated the length of hospitalization by 30% [ 9], but also more than doubled the likelihood of mortality in ESRD patients with depression compared to those with ESRD only [ 8].
Activation of NF-κB, with increased translocation from the cytoplasm to the nucleus, is associated with a higher likelihood of mortality in patients with sepsis and acute lung injury [ 3, 4].
18 19 20 21 41 42 43 This finding was also consistent with our tertiary analysis, indicating that the likelihood of mortality in patients admitted at weekends was 11% higher than that of patients admitted on weekdays (odds ratio 1.11, 95% confidence interval 1.10 to 1.12, P<0.01).
The long-term result is a reduction of cardiac output, which, if sufficiently severe, manifests in cardiac failure, increasing the morbidity and likelihood of mortality of the patient.
Although one may argue that CBHI alone may not reduce mortality rates, we can reasonably assume that, everything being equal, reduction of financial barriers could significantly reduce the delays in accessing emergency care and therefore reduce the likelihood of mortality.
