Acutely admitted medical patients have increasing one-year mortality with increasing age

Methods We followed a cohort of all consecutive acutely admitted adult (15+ years) medical patients for one year after admission. The patients were admitted from October 2008 through February 2009 and February through May 2010 to the medical admission unit at Sydvestjysk Sygehus, Esbjerg. Only patients who were not Danish residents were excluded. We extracted survival status from the Danish Civil Register and calculated mortality at one year stratified by age in the groups 15-49, 50-64, 65-79 and 80+ years. We calculated both crude hazard ratios using Cox Proportional Hazard Regression analysis and adjusted for potential confounders: gender, comorbidity (using Charlson comorbidity index [CCI]) and the British national early warning score (NEWS) at time of admission.