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Clinical Profile of Road Traffic Accident Victims with Orthopedic Injuries Admitted in a Tertiary Care Hospital of India

Sukhpal Kaur, Mandeep S Dhillon, Sarvdeep Singh Dhatt

Abstract


Road traffic accidents (RTA) are the major cause of morbidity and mortality in the developing countries. The current study was carried out to assess the clinical profile of RTA victims with orthopedic injuries admitted at a tertiary care hospital. This descriptive, cross-sectional, prospective study was carried out at Trauma ward of a tertiary care hospital of India over a period of eight months. Using convenient purposive sampling technique, 400 RTA victims admitted in the said unit were included in the study. A pre-validated questionnaire was used to obtain the data. Injury characteristics were noted using the patient’s hospital records. Information was sought regarding the socio-demographic profile, the personal history of the subjects, occurrence of accident, the type of injury and the financial implications etc. Each patient was followed up daily in the hospital till his/her discharge/death from the hospital. More than half (58%) of the subjects were in the age group of 21–40 years with the mean age being 33.7 years ± 14.4. Majority (90%) were males. In around half of the subjects (45%), the total family income was below ` 5000 per month. 32% of the accidents had occurred during the evening. Sunday was the day when most of the accidents had happened. 52.8% were themselves on the driver seat. Most were the two wheeler drivers. Only 31.3% reported to have been wearing protective equipment like helmet and seat belt. Maximum patients (40.8%) were from state of Punjab. 61% had single bone fractured, and 28% victims had two bones fractured. The mean stay in the hospital was 66.6±11.5 days. 63.8% of them reported the expenditure on medicine and surgery between ` 10,001–50000. Twelve patients died; three patients (0.8%) were carried LAMA (Left Against Medical Advise) by the attendants. Amongst the discharged, 2 patients had amputation of lower limbs. There is an urgent need of enforcement of road traffic rules in order to decrease this preventable cause of death and disability in developing countries.

Keywords: Road traffic accidents, Orthopedic injury, Tertiary care hospital

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37628/ijorn.v2i2.8

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