{"title":"Statistical Analyses in the case of an Italian nurse accused of murdering patients","authors":"R. Gill, Francesco Dotto, J. Mortera","doi":"10.1093/lpr/mgac007","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Suspicions about medical murder sometimes arise due to a surprising or unexpected series of events, such as an apparently unusual number of deaths among patients under the care of a particular nurse. But also a single disturbing event might trigger suspicion about a particular nurse, and this might then lead to investigation of events which happened when she was thought to be present. In either case, there is a statistical challenge of distinguishing event clusters that arise from criminal acts from those that arise coincidentally from other causes. We show that an apparently striking association between a nurse’s presence and a high rate of deaths in a hospital ward can easily be completely spurious. In short: in a medium-care hospital ward where many patients are suffering terminal illnesses, and deaths are frequent, most deaths occur in the morning. Most nurses are on duty in the morning, too. There are less deaths in the afternoon, and even less at night; correspondingly, less nurses are on duty in the afternoon, even less during the night. Consequently, a full time nurse works the most hours when the most deaths occur. The death rate is higher when she is present than when she is absent.","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"100","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/lpr/mgac007","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Suspicions about medical murder sometimes arise due to a surprising or unexpected series of events, such as an apparently unusual number of deaths among patients under the care of a particular nurse. But also a single disturbing event might trigger suspicion about a particular nurse, and this might then lead to investigation of events which happened when she was thought to be present. In either case, there is a statistical challenge of distinguishing event clusters that arise from criminal acts from those that arise coincidentally from other causes. We show that an apparently striking association between a nurse’s presence and a high rate of deaths in a hospital ward can easily be completely spurious. In short: in a medium-care hospital ward where many patients are suffering terminal illnesses, and deaths are frequent, most deaths occur in the morning. Most nurses are on duty in the morning, too. There are less deaths in the afternoon, and even less at night; correspondingly, less nurses are on duty in the afternoon, even less during the night. Consequently, a full time nurse works the most hours when the most deaths occur. The death rate is higher when she is present than when she is absent.
期刊介绍:
Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance.
Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.