Profile of trauma patients in the emergency department of a tertiary care hospital in South India

BACKGROUND: Trauma is an increasing cause of morbidity and mortality in India. This study was done to improve the understanding of the mode of trauma, severity of injuries, and outcome of trauma victims in our hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study of all adult trauma patients more than 18-year-old presenting to our emergency department (ED). Details of the incident, injuries, and outcome were noted. RESULTS: The ED attended to 16,169 patients during the 3-month study period with 10% (1624/16,169) being adult trauma incidents. The gender distribution was 73.6% males and 26.4% females. The mean age was 40.2 ± 16.7 years. The median duration from time of incident to time of arrival to the ED was 3 h (interquartile range [IQR]: 1.5–6.5) for priority one patients, 3 h (IQR: 1.5–7.7) for priority two patients, and 1.5 h (IQR: 1–7) for priority three patients. The average number of trauma incidents increased by 28% during the weekends. Road traffic accident (RTA) (65%) was the most common mode of injury, followed by fall on level ground (13.5%), fall from height (6.3%), work place injuries (6.3%), and others. Traumatic brain injury was seen in 17% of patients while 13.3% had polytrauma with two-wheeler accidents contributing to the majority. The ED team alone managed 23.4% of patients while the remaining 76.6% required evaluation and treatment by the trauma, surgical teams. The in-hospital mortality rate was 2.3%. Multivariate analysis showed low Glasgow coma score (odds ratio [OR]: 0.65, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.55–0.76, P < 0.001) and high respiratory rate (OR: 1.15, 95% CI: 1.07–1.24, P < 0.001) to be independent predictors of mortality among polytrauma victims. CONCLUSIONS: RTA and falls are the predominant causes of trauma. A simple physiological variable-based scoring system such as the revised trauma score may be used to prioritize patients with polytrauma.