Epidemiology of trauma in Shahid Bahonar hospital in Kerman

Abstract

<br /><strong>Objective: </strong>Trauma is one of the main causes of losing effective life among the populations. Knowing the pattern of trauma in each country can be considered as the first step in planning preventive programs to reduce trauma injuries. This study was conducted to evaluate the epidemiological status of trauma in Shahid Bahonar hospital in Kerman. <br /><strong>Methods: </strong>This retrospective, descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014. The study population consisted of all traumatic patients who referred to Shahid Bahonar hospital. All patients entered the study based on census sampling. In order to collect data, the medical record of each patient was scrutinized and the demographic information, causes of trauma, and the anatomical location of trauma were extracted. All data were entered into the SPSS version 20 software. For data analysis, we used descriptive tests (frequency and mean) as well as analytical tests (chi-square). <br /><strong>Results: </strong>7803 (76.8%) traumatic patients were male and 2358 (23.2%) were female. Of all causes of trauma, accidents had the most frequency among women and men at 1208 (23.9%) and 3846 (76.1%) correspondingly. Other causes of trauma in both groups were related to falling (1538), violence (1720), occupation (1181), sports (663), and self-harm (5). The age group of 15-24 with 2576 patients had the highest amount of trauma (25.4%). In terms of location, limbs and thorax had the highest and the lowest amount of injury at 4527 (44.6%) and 653 (6.4%) respectively. We could observe a significant relationship between the cause of trauma with sex and the age variables (<em>P </em>< 0.0001). <br /><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Males are more susceptible to traumatic problems than females regarding the nature of their jobs . Moreover, accidents are the main cause of trauma. Improving the quality of vehicles, roads safety, and establishing driver training courses to follow the rules are highly recommended.