CSO Frontier Series outputs may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release.
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In deaths between March 2020 and February 2022, COVID-19 was identified as the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) in 5,384 cases.
Four in five deaths from COVID-19 had at least three medical conditions mentioned on the death record. Death certificates listed 4.2 conditions on average per person.
The largest number of accompanying conditions of COVID-19 deaths were diseases of the respiratory system, which were reported in 5,279 (or 98%) of COVID-19 deaths.
Pneumonia was certified as a condition in 3,023 (or 56%) of COVID-19 deaths. Chronic lower respiratory diseases were stated on 948 (or 18%) death certificates, of which 714 (or 13%) had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
COVID-19 was the UCOD in 2.3% of all deaths involving cancer of the bronchus or lung, in 3.0% of all deaths where breast cancer was reported, and in almost 6% of all deaths which mentioned prostate cancer as a condition suffered by the deceased person.
Asthma was certified in 136 COVID-19 deaths which represented 18% of all deaths with a mention of asthma, while obesity, reported in 80 COVID-19 deaths, accounted for 19% of all deaths affected by the condition.
Looking at the data by age, 91% of COVID-19 deaths occurred in persons aged 65 and over; 75% in persons aged 75 and over; and 42% in persons aged 85 and over.
More males died due to COVID-19 (53%) in the defined period than females (47%).
| Top 10 accompanying conditions reported in deaths due to COVID-19 | |||
| ICD-10 code | Condition reported on the death certificate | Number of deaths where COVID-19 was the Underlying Cause of Death 1 | Percentage of deaths with this condition where COVID-19 was the Underlying Cause of Death (%) 2 |
| J12–J18 | Pneumonia | 3,023 | 27.5 |
| F01,F03 | Dementia | 1,041 | 12.4 |
| J40–J47 | Chronic lower respiratory diseases | 948 | 10.2 |
| I10 | Hypertension | 880 | 9.7 |
| I25 | Chronic ischaemic heart disease | 780 | 6.0 |
| C00–C97 | Malignant neoplasms | 779 | 2.7 |
| J44 | Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease | 714 | 9.5 |
| E10–E14 | Diabetes mellitus | 706 | 9.3 |
| I48 | Atrial fibrillation and flutter | 671 | 9.1 |
| I50 | Heart failure | 533 | 6.2 |
| 1 As a single death certificate can contain multiple medical conditions, the figures of deaths by condition do not represent the actual number of deaths due to COVID-19. | |||
| 2 As a single death certificate can contain multiple medical conditions, the percentages of COVID-19 deaths by condition do not sum to 100. | |||
This Frontier Series Output presents the results of an analysis of the accompanying conditions in deaths due to COVID-19. The deaths analysed occurred in Ireland between 01 March 2020 and 28 February 2022 and have been registered with the General Register Office (GRO) and subsequently notified to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) by 31 May 2022.
The analysis focuses on deaths where COVID-19 was found to have been the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD). A death certificate may list multiple medical conditions, based upon which, the UCOD is identified by applying specific guidelines from the World Health Organization. A death due to COVID-19 differs from a death with COVID-19, in that COVID-19 is identified as the UCOD in those who died due to COVID-19, while it is one of a number of conditions listed in deaths certified as a death with COVID-19 (see Background Notes). In deaths between March 2020 and February 2022, COVID-19 was reported as a medical condition in 6,255 cases and was identified as the UCOD in 5,384 cases.
While the CSO regularly publishes statistics on the underlying causes of death in Ireland, this Frontier Series Output aims to present statistics on other conditions or diseases that accompanied deaths due to COVID-19 and that are themselves not determined to have been the UCOD.
This release presents the findings of an analysis of the accompanying conditions in COVID-19 deaths. This analysis considers all conditions that were recorded on the death certificates other than COVID-19. In short, it shows the number of persons who died due to COVID-19 and had certain selected conditions or diseases recorded on the death certificates. The accompanying conditions are also referred to as comorbidities. For further information on the selection of the conditions included in this analysis, see Background Notes.
Note that, as a single death certificate can contain multiple accompanying medical conditions, the figures of deaths by condition do not represent the actual number of deaths from COVID-19. The total number of COVID-19 deaths included in this analysis are 5,384 deaths.
This analysis of the accompanying medical conditions stated on the certificates shows that:
See Table 1 for details.
Table 2 provides more context to the selected conditions in COVID-19 deaths. The percentages below consider the number of deaths with a selected condition listed where COVID-19 was identified as the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) in relation to the total number of deaths with the same condition from any UCOD (not restricted to COVID-19) in the same period.
Please note, caution must be exercised in commenting on any conditions which occurred in less than 20 deaths (see Table 1) because of the low volumes.
The analysis of the multiple medical conditions stated on the deaths certificates shows that:
See Table 2 for details. The percentages for the larger groupings of diseases are visualised in Figure 2.
This section considers COVID-19 deaths in terms of the number of accompanying medical conditions mentioned on each death certificate. As outlined above, each death certificate can list multiple medical conditions, one of which was COVID-19. Consequently, a death record with one cause of death details COVID-19 as the single cause of death and reports no other conditions. For further information, see Background Notes.
Table 3 details the number of conditions mentioned anywhere on the death certificate by age group. The number of COVID-19 deaths increased by age group, and generally also by the number of medical conditions mentioned.
An analysis of the medical conditions on the death records shows that:
See Table 3 and Figure 3 for details.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (16 August 2022) released a Frontier Series Output focusing specifically on deaths due to COVID-19 occurring in Ireland between 01 March 2020 and 28 February 2022.
Commenting on the release, Gerard Doolan, Statistician in the Vital Statistics Division, said: "This analysis classifies COVID-19 deaths by their accompanying medical conditions. A death certificate may list multiple medical conditions, based upon which, the Underlying Cause of Death (UCOD) is identified (see Background Notes). The data included in this analysis comprises of deaths between 01 March 2020 and 28 February 2022 where COVID-19 was the UCOD in a total of 5,384 deaths. This analysis focuses on the other conditions or diseases that accompanied these deaths. It is worth noting that as a single death certificate can contain multiple accompanying medical conditions, the figures of deaths by condition do not represent the actual number of deaths from COVID-19. Also, a death due to COVID-19 differs from a death with COVID-19, in that COVID-19 is identified as the main UCOD in those who died due to COVID-19, while it is one of a number of conditions listed in deaths certified as a death with COVID-19. The total number of COVID-19 deaths included in this analysis is 5,384 deaths.
Looking at the data, we can see that a total of 183 deaths (or 3.4%) reported COVID-19 as the single cause of death, whereas, 5,201 (or almost 97%) COVID-19 deaths were certified as having had COVID-19 and at least one other medical condition on the death certificate.
The highest individual medical conditions reported on death certificates were pneumonia with 3,023 (or 56%) COVID-19 deaths, dementia with 1,041 (or 19%) such deaths, and chronic lower respiratory diseases with 948 (or 18%) such deaths (see Table 1).
COVID-19 was the UCOD in 2.3% of all deaths involving cancer of bronchus or lung, in 3.0% of all deaths where breast cancer was reported, and in almost 6% of all deaths which mentioned prostate cancer as an accompanying medical condition (see Table 2).
On average, death certificates listed 4.2 medical conditions per person (see Table 3)."