Kausaalimalli lääkeannostuksen aiheuttamalle kuolleisuudelle tehohoitopotilailla

Dexmedetomidine is a sedative drug which is especially used to sedate patients in intensive care. In 2019, SPICE III researchers reported of a worrying safety signal related to the drug. According to the study, under 65-year-old patients who belonged to the dexmedetomidine group had a higher mortality risk in comparison to the control group. In 2023, an additional study showed that an increase of dexmedetomidine dose was linked to increased mortality in the case of younger patients. The aim of this master's thesis is to reanalyse the SPICE III dataset with the intention to use causal inference to estimate the effect of a dose change on mortality. In addition to using causal inference, this thesis uses an alternative approach to patient selection, as well as statistical modeling. The model addresses certain issues that appeared during the previous analyses. The results of the thesis regarding dexmedetomidine were partially different compared to the results of previous studies. The increase of average dose didn't appear to increase the mortality. Instead, the increase of average midazolam dose was linked to an increase in mortality.