Profile Of Nonfatal Injuries In Road Traffic Accidents Cases Treated At A Tertiary Level Trauma Centre

Background: Road traffic accidents (RTAs) are the major cause of preventable injury, consuming a large share of public health resources. A lack of trauma registry leads to ineffective predictive models.Aims and Objectives: To study in detail parameters that describe nature and severity of injury along with demographic details for nonfatal RTA cases which can be used to develop the better prediction models to reduce morbidities and a more effective allocation of resources.Methods and Materials: A retrospective study including all the nonfatal RTA cases presenting at our institute for 3 months duration, from January 2015 to March 2015. Information regarding name, age, gender, demography, time of occurrence, site of injury according to the injury severity score (ISS) mode of treatment given, clinical department which treated the patient, length of stay in hospital and the final outcome was recorded of all the eligible patients (1047). Patients were classified using ISS parameters.Results: A total of 1047 patients were studied. A mean age was 34.4 years, 82% were males, maximum number of patients (28%) were young adults (20-29 years), head injury was present in more than half of the patients (575) followed by lower extremity (419), upper extremity (290), and face (250), 43% were admitted for indoor care, 52% of total admissions were in neurosurgery department and 37% were admitted in orthopedics, 45% of the admitted patients needed operative treatment, average length of stay was 8.7 days.Conclusions: This study helped us in finding out certain characteristics which may be useful for planning preventive strategies and redirect public investment in preventive strategy and educational inputs for better safety measures.