Predictors of pre-hospital vs. hospital mortality due to road traffic injuries in an Iranian population: results from Tabriz integrated road traffic injury registry.

BACKGROUND: Road Traffic Injuries (RTIs) is considered as one of the main health challenges and causes of mortality, worldwide and especially in Iran. Predicting the place where RTIs-related death takes place is vital in decreasing this type of mortality. The purpose of the present study was to identify the predictors of RTI fatalities with respect to the place of death (hospital vs. pre-hospital) during the recent decade in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. METHODS: Overall, 7347 RTI fatalities were retrieved from the road traffic injuries registry which is supported by the Forensic Medicine Organization in East Azerbaijan. Among these cases, 2758(37.5%)) were hospital deaths. The registered variables of these cases were analysed using bivariate and multiple logistic regression (STATA version 15). RESULTS: Out of 7347 deaths, 5862 (79.8%) were men and the rest were women 1485 (20.2%).The mean age was 40.3 (SD = 20.8). Of the total number of cases, 2758 (37.5%) died in hospital death and the rest 4589 (62.5) were pre-hospital death. According to the results of the present study, inter-city RTI (OR = 1.7, CI 95% = (1.5-2)) and RTIs inside the city of Tabriz (OR = 1.4, CI 95% = (1.2-1.6)) increases the chance of hospitals death. In addition, having a heavy counterpart vehicle compared to no counterpart vehicle decreased the chances of hospitals death (OR = 0.46, CI 95% = (0.39-0.55)) while motorcycle or bike counterpart vehicle compared to no counterpart vehicle increased the chances of hospital death (OR = 2.26, CI 95% = (1.59-3.22)). Also the users of the motorcycle or bike vehicle compared to the pedestrians increased the chances of hospital death (OR = 1.43, CI 95% = (1.19-1.71)) while any the other vehicle users compared to the pedestrians have significantly lower chances for hospital death. Other factors that increased hospitals death were transferring injured people by ambulance (OR = 1.3, CI 95% = (1.1-1.6)) and being elderly (OR = 1.5, CI 95% = (1.2-1.7)). Moreover, it was found that the annual trend of change in hospital death is strongly affected by the above-identified factors. CONCLUSIONS: The effective predictors in hospital death were RTI location, type of counterpart vehicle, used vehicles and lighting condition. The identified factors related to the location of deaths by RTI can be divided into the RTI severity-related factors as well as factors related to the services quality and speed of delivery. According to the present results, through professional training of people in the field and providing immediate assistance in RTIs pre-hospital mortality can be significantly prevented.

Evaluating mechanism and severity of injuries among trauma patients admitted to Sina Hospital, the National Trauma Registry of Iran / 中华创伤杂志(英文版)

PURPOSE@#Injuries are one of the leading causes of death and lead to a high social and financial burden. Injury patterns can vary significantly among different age groups and body regions. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between mechanism of injury, patient comorbidities and severity of injuries.@*METHODS@#The study included trauma patients from July 2016 to June 2018, who were admitted to Sina Hospital, Tehran, Iran. The inclusion criteria were all injured patients who had at least one of the following: hospital length of stay more than 24 h, death in hospital, and transfer from the intensive care unit of another hospital. Data collection was performed using the National Trauma Registry of Iran minimum dataset.@*RESULTS@#The most common injury mechanism was road traffic injuries (49.0%), followed by falls (25.5%). The mean age of those who fell was significantly higher in comparison with other mechanisms (p < 0.001). Severe extremity injuries occurred more often in the fall group than in the vehicle collision group (69.0% vs. 43.5%, p < 0.001). Moreover, cases of severe multiple trauma were higher amongst vehicle collisions than injuries caused by falls (27.8% vs. 12.9%, p = 0.003).@*CONCLUSION@#Comparing falls with motor vehicle collisions, patients who fell were older and sustained more extremity injuries. Patients injured by motor vehicle collision were more likely to have sustained multiple trauma than those presenting with falls. Recognition of the relationship between mechanisms and consequences of injuries may lead to more effective interventions.

Experts' perspectives on the application of public-private partnership policy in prevention of road traffic injuries / 中华创伤杂志(英文版)

PURPOSE@#Successful application experiences on public-private partnership (PPP) in different countries, suggest that PPP could be an option in road traffic injury (RTI) prevention. The present study aims at investigating the applicability of PPP policy in RTI prevention in Iran based on the experts' perspectives.@*METHODS@#This is a qualitative study with grounded theory approach which has been conducted in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran in 2018. The participants were 22 experts in the field of RTIs selected using purposive sampling method. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and analyzed with content-analysis method.@*RESULTS@#The results were classified under 5 main themes (applicability, scopes and services, challenges, advantages, and strategies) for applying PPP policy and 37 sub-themes. Due to the prevalence of RTIs, the present challenges in public sector, existence of qualified private sector, and successful experiences in other areas, there are opportunities for private sector partnership in prevention of RTIs. Private sector could participate in different scopes and services regarding RTI prevention, including road construction and maintenance, maintenance and provision of vehicles safety and public education. The main challenges including legislation issues, ambiguities in collaboration, political and organizational unsustainability, government's financial hardship and lack of experienced experts in the field of RTI. However, there are significant advantages including high efficiency in program implementation, covering the weaknesses of public sector, effective and efficient management on application of PPP in RTI prevention. The strategies include identifying and prioritizing the assignable activities, identifying the qualified private sector, developing PPP policies and legal frameworks, creating a common language between public and private parties, trying to meet the expectations of the private sector by public sector, developing a comprehensive and sound contract, and cultivating public culture to accept private sector in the field of RTI prevention.@*CONCLUSION@#This study sought to determine whether PPP could be used as strategy to reduce the burden of RTIs in Iran. But it requires a lot of preliminary studies to provide the context and conditions for applying this policy.

Analysis of Provincial Mortalities Among Bus/Minibus Users Over Twelve Years, East Azerbaijan, Iran.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiological features of bus/minibus users' road traffic injury mortalities during 2006-2017, in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. Methods: All 245 bus/minibus users' mortalities, registered in the forensic medicine database, were analyzed by STATA 13 statistical software package. Results: The majority of victims (mean age: 41.5±18.6 years) were men (70%), adults (79.18%), illiterate (22.4%) and self-employed (25.3%). Passersby and police played an almost null role in transporting victims since 2014. A decreasing trend of bus/minibus users' fatalities was observed over the study time. Head-neck-face trauma was more common among those who died prior to hospitalization. Rollover was significantly prevalent among bus users and falling among minibus users. Lorries, vans, and trailers as crash counterpart vehicles caused 59% of deceases, excluding the cases when no other vehicle was engaged. Victims were more likely to die at the hospital when crashes happened in the city's inner roads (OR: 4.17; 95%CI:1.7-9.9). The elderly were 2.78 times more likely to die at the hospital when compared to the other age groups (95%CI: 1.23-6.26). Conclusions: To identify a target group for interventions on traffic-related knowledge, attitude and behaviors, male adults, illiterate and self-employed bus/minibus users could be of priority. Type vehicles involved in the crash should be considered as an important factor affect on crash fatalities. Further investigations are needed in this regard in the future.

Effect of Enhanced External Counterpulsation and Cardiac Rehabilitation on Quality of Life, Plasma Nitric Oxide, Endothelin 1 and High Sensitive CRP in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease: A Pilot Study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of enhanced external counterpulsation (EECP) on plasma nitric oxide (NO), Endothelin 1 (ET1), high sensitive C-reactive protein (HSCRP) and quality of life (QoL) in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). METHODS: We conducted a pilot randomized clinical trial in order to evaluate plasma NO, ET1, HSCRP and QoL before and after twenty sessions of EECP (group A) and cardiac rehabilitation (CR, group B) in 42 patients with CAD (21 in each group). RESULTS: Forty-two patients (33 male and 9 female) were included in the study. The mean age was 58.2+/-10 years. The mean HSCRP was 1.52+/-0.7 in the EECP group and it was reduced to 1.27+/-0.4 after intervention. The reduction in HSCRP was not statistically significant in EECP and CR groups with p=0.33 and p=0.27, respectively. There was not significant improvement of NO, ET1, and QoL in the EECP and CR groups shortly after therapy (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: Although the short-term EECP treatment in CAD patients improved HSCRP, NO, ET1, and QoL compared with the baseline those improvements are not statistically significant. Further studies are necessary with large study groups and more sessions.