[The causes of death of the women of childbearing age at the hospitals of Sfax].

AIM: To study the principal causes of death of the women dead at an âge ranging between 15 and 49 years old and having been hospitalized in a public medical structures of the gouvernorat of Sfax.

METHODS: Retrospective study concerning all the included deaths between 1999 and 2007.

RESULTS: The study was related to 728 deaths, which correspond to an average of 80.88 deaths FAR per year. Public highway accidents were the major cause of death (83 cases, 11.4 % of the causes of death) followed by the burns (37 cases, 5%) and the cerebral vascular accidents (31 cases, 4.25%). The classification of the causes of death according to groups of pathologies showed the prevalence of the cardio- vascular diseases (18.7%), the external causes of death (18.2%), cancers (11.6%) and the causes related to the pregnancy and the childbirth (8.5%). The maternal death rate was of 56.91 per 100000. The cause of maternal death was directly related to the pregnancy in 67.74 % of the cases. The immediate causes were prevailed by the hemorrhagic causes (27.5%). The death was avoidable in 48.83 % of the cases and the failures were related to the woman in 60% of the cases.

CONCLUSION: The prevention of new practices of life (female nicotinism, obesity, bad food habits, lack of vigilance in traffic) and a better practice of the primary and secondary prevention in medicine could decrease the premature death rates in Tunisia.