Patterns of Injuries in Road Traffic Accidents in a Rural Tertiary Hospital.

ABSTRACT

Road traffic injuries are a major but neglected global public health problem, requiring concerted efforts for effective and sustainable prevention. Of all the systems that people have to deal with on a daily basis, road transport is the most complex and the most dangerous. Objectives: To study the patterns of injuries in the road traffic accidents and days of hospitalization. Materials and Methodology: The study was retrospective record based study and included cases reported and recorded from October 2007 to March 2008. Results: The present study was designed to study the patterns of injuries in RTA (Road Traffic Accidents) in Anand district of Gujarat. The results showed that out of total 423 RTA cases, 327(77.3%) of the victims were males and the rest 96(22.7%) were females. Two wheeler riders and pedestrians form twothird of the total victims. Total 232 fractures were noticed and of these maximum numbers occurred in the lower limb region (53.86%) followed by fractures in the upper limb (24.54%) and 10.77% fractures were in the skull. Abrasions were seen most commonly on lower limbs (34.31%), lacerations were seen mostly on head (41.07%) and internal injuries were noticed more in the head region (31.48%). 74.2% of the victims were hospitalized and the rest 25.8% took treatment at the trauma centre. 51.1% of RTA victims were hospitalized for 1-5 days while patients who did not require hospitalization were 109(25.8%).