J Korean Acad Fam Med.  2001 Jul;22(7):1077-1085.

Factors associated with the place of death in Korea; a population based study

• Yoon HK
• Yun YH
• Ou SW
• Koh HJ
• Huh BY

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In western countries the proportion of deaths in the hospital has somewhat decreased. While that of Korea has continuously increased, it is interesting things that the hospital death rate in Korea is less than that in western countries. Therefore we tried to find the factors associated with the place of death in Korea.
METHODS
We obtained the data from the National Statistical Office. They are composed of address, occupation, cause of death, marital status, and level of education. Causes of death were classified by ICD 10. Univariate and Mutivariate analysis were done to find the effect of each variable for the place of death.
RESULTS
Total number of the study population was 242,362 (male;136,063, female;106,299). Female died more in the hospital. The younger are more likely to die in the hospital. People having lived in metropolitan, having educated to higher level and professionals died more in the hospital. And the people having had ischemic heart disease and cancer death were more likely to die in the hospital. The single(unmarried, divorced) died more in the hospital. In multivariate analysis, the place of death was significantly different by sex, age, address, occupation, cause of death, and level of education.
CONCLUSION
In Korea sex, age, address, occupation, cause of death, and level of education are helpful in predicting the palce of death.

Keyword

place of death; terminally ill patient; death registry

MeSH Terms

Cause of Death
Education
Female
Humans
Korea*
Marital Status
Mortality
Multivariate Analysis
Myocardial Ischemia
Occupations