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Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals

In the ongoing Second Decade of Action for Road Safety, road traffic crashes pose a considerable threat especially in low-income countries. Uganda shows a vast burden of non-fatal injuries and resides at the top range of countries with the highest death rates due to unsafe roads. However, little is...

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Autores principales: Temizel, Selin, Wunderlich, Robert, Leifels, Mats
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8304504/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34300111
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147663
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author Temizel, Selin
Wunderlich, Robert
Leifels, Mats
author_facet Temizel, Selin
Wunderlich, Robert
Leifels, Mats
author_sort Temizel, Selin
collection PubMed
description In the ongoing Second Decade of Action for Road Safety, road traffic crashes pose a considerable threat especially in low-income countries. Uganda shows a vast burden of non-fatal injuries and resides at the top range of countries with the highest death rates due to unsafe roads. However, little is known about the differences in road traffic associated injuries between urban and rural areas and potential influence factors. Here, we used a cross-sectional study conducted by a retrospective medical record review from trauma cases admitted in 2016 to hospitals in rural and urban areas in Uganda. Injury severity scores were calculated and descriptive analysis was carried out while multivariate logistic regression was applied to assess significant covariates. According to the 1683 medical records reviewed, the mean age of trauma patients in the dataset under investigation was 30.8 years with 74% male. The trauma in-hospital mortality was 4% while prevalence of traumatic injuries is 56.4%. Motorcycle users (49.6%) and pedestrians (33.7%) were identified as the most vulnerable groups in both urban and rural setting while mild injuries of extremities (61.6%) and the head/neck-region (42.0%) were registered most. The frequency of road traffic injuries was homogenous in the urban and rural hospitals investigated in this study; interventions should therefore be intensified ubiquitously. The identification of significant differences in road traffic crash and injury characteristics provides the opportunity for specific programmes to decrease the socio-economic and health burden of unsafe roads. In addition to law enforcement and introduction of a Systems Thinking approach to road safety including infrastructural and educational concepts, the strengthening of trauma care and health resources is recommended.
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spelling pubmed-83045042021-07-25 Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals Temizel, Selin Wunderlich, Robert Leifels, Mats Int J Environ Res Public Health Article In the ongoing Second Decade of Action for Road Safety, road traffic crashes pose a considerable threat especially in low-income countries. Uganda shows a vast burden of non-fatal injuries and resides at the top range of countries with the highest death rates due to unsafe roads. However, little is known about the differences in road traffic associated injuries between urban and rural areas and potential influence factors. Here, we used a cross-sectional study conducted by a retrospective medical record review from trauma cases admitted in 2016 to hospitals in rural and urban areas in Uganda. Injury severity scores were calculated and descriptive analysis was carried out while multivariate logistic regression was applied to assess significant covariates. According to the 1683 medical records reviewed, the mean age of trauma patients in the dataset under investigation was 30.8 years with 74% male. The trauma in-hospital mortality was 4% while prevalence of traumatic injuries is 56.4%. Motorcycle users (49.6%) and pedestrians (33.7%) were identified as the most vulnerable groups in both urban and rural setting while mild injuries of extremities (61.6%) and the head/neck-region (42.0%) were registered most. The frequency of road traffic injuries was homogenous in the urban and rural hospitals investigated in this study; interventions should therefore be intensified ubiquitously. The identification of significant differences in road traffic crash and injury characteristics provides the opportunity for specific programmes to decrease the socio-economic and health burden of unsafe roads. In addition to law enforcement and introduction of a Systems Thinking approach to road safety including infrastructural and educational concepts, the strengthening of trauma care and health resources is recommended. MDPI 2021-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8304504/ /pubmed/34300111 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147663 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Temizel, Selin
Wunderlich, Robert
Leifels, Mats
Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals
title Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals
title_full Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals
title_fullStr Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals
title_full_unstemmed Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals
title_short Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Road Traffic Injuries in Urban and Rural Uganda—A Retrospective Medical Record Review Study in Two Hospitals
title_sort characteristics and injury patterns of road traffic injuries in urban and rural uganda—a retrospective medical record review study in two hospitals
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8304504/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34300111
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147663
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