Deaths Among the Intellectually Disabled: A Retrospective Study

At the Paimio Settlement for The Mentally Handicapped in The Special Welfare District of Southwest Finland, 216 persons with intellectual disability died during the period 1972‐93. We studied the causes of death, contributing factors, and associated diseases among these persons. Diagnoses were collected from death certificates and patient documents. The causes of death were based on autopsy in 85% of the patients. We calculated the ratio of observed (O) and expected (E) cases. Expected rates for the different causes of death were calculated using the mortality rates of the general Finnish population. The data were adjusted for age and year of death. The spectrum of the causes of death essentially differed from that of the general population. There was less than expected mortality from accidents (O/E 0,3, 95% CI 0,2‐0,4), diseases of the circulatory system (O/E 0,4,95% CI 0,2‐0,7) and malignant neoplasms (O/E 0,5,95% CI 0,3‐0,9), and more than expected mortality from respiratory diseases (O/E 2,2, 95% CI 1,2–3,6).