论文标题
对于一名意大利护士被指控谋杀患者的统计分析
Statistical Analyses in the case of an Italian nurse accused of murdering patients
论文作者
论文摘要
有时由于特定护士照顾下的患者中的一系列事件，有时会引起人们对医疗谋杀的怀疑。但是，一个令人不安的事件可能会引起对特定护士的怀疑，这可能会导致对她认为在场时发生的事件的调查。无论哪种情况，都存在一个统计挑战，即区分事件群集是由犯罪行为与其他原因偶然产生的犯罪行为产生的。我们表明，护士的存在与医院病房中高死亡率之间的显着关联很容易完全是虚假的。简而言之：在一个中型医院病房中，许多患者患有绝症，死亡经常发生，大多数死亡发生在早晨。大多数护士也在早上值班。下午的死亡较少，晚上甚至更少。相应地，较少的护士在下午值班，甚至在夜间更少。因此，当大多数死亡发生时，全职护士在最多的时间工作。当她在场时，死亡率比缺席时高。
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.
