Posted: Feb 13, 2017 7:26 pm
Sigh.
The study in the OP found a 25% survival rate. Among the group of patients they looked at, 25% survived. The study cited in the Baltimore Sun wasn't looking at a group of patients - they were including a group of all head GSWs, which by definition includes many who are never classified as patients and thus do not enter the health care system.
The study in the OP noted that self-infliction was a predictor of mortality. It is highly likely that many self-inflicted GSWs were so immediately lethal that their victims never entered the health care system to be counted - giving a completely different statistical picture than that shown in the OP.
You cannot compare apples and oranges like that. It would be just as inappropriate as comparing the lethality of a self-inflicted GSW to one inflicted by a third party in the course of an assault, and complaining that someone observing a higher survival rate in the assault GSWs was wrong because the self-inflicted mortality rate was much higher.
The study in the OP found a 25% survival rate. Among the group of patients they looked at, 25% survived. The study cited in the Baltimore Sun wasn't looking at a group of patients - they were including a group of all head GSWs, which by definition includes many who are never classified as patients and thus do not enter the health care system.
The study in the OP noted that self-infliction was a predictor of mortality. It is highly likely that many self-inflicted GSWs were so immediately lethal that their victims never entered the health care system to be counted - giving a completely different statistical picture than that shown in the OP.
You cannot compare apples and oranges like that. It would be just as inappropriate as comparing the lethality of a self-inflicted GSW to one inflicted by a third party in the course of an assault, and complaining that someone observing a higher survival rate in the assault GSWs was wrong because the self-inflicted mortality rate was much higher.