Citation

Masiira-Mukasa N, Ombito BR. East Afr. Med. J. 2002; 79(7): 373-378.

Affiliation

Rift Valley Surgical Consultation Clinic, Nakuru, Kenya.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Nairobi Medical Association of East Africa)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12638833

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To describe the pattern of surgical admissions to the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital and in particular the epidemiologic characteristics of trauma admissions. DESIGN: Retrospective study. SETTING: Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital, Nakuru from (1st January 1998 - 31st December 1999). SUBJECTS: All patients admitted to the various surgical wards (excluding eye-patients) during the stated period and whose medical records were available and complete. METHODS: Medical records of all surgical patients admitted during the period of study were retrieved using admission data from casualty, surgical out-patient and Annex Hospital registers. Further medical data were obtained from wards admission registers, nurses report books and records from theatre and radiology books. A special data-form was used to collect the required information. The data was subjected to simple statistical analysis. RESULTS: There were 5,907 surgical admissions of whom 3,411 cases seventy three point five percent were trauma admissions, 1,499 cases (25.4%) were non-traumatic emergency surgical admissions and 997 cases (16.8%) were elective surgical admissions. 73.5% of all trauma admissions were males and 57.6% were in the 21-60 year age-group. The most common injuries were soft-tissue injuries, fractures, burn injuries and head injuries, while the leading causes of trauma were road traffic accidents (32.7%), assaults (23.8%), falls (15.5%) and burns (13%). Fifty one point seven percent of all performed surgical operations were trauma-related. The mean length of hospital stay for trauma patients was 10.4 days. Trauma was the leading cause of death (6.6%) among all surgical admissions. CONCLUSION: Trauma, particularly due to road traffic accidents and violence is a growing public health problem in this region that urgently calls for specific intervention measures. Further studies of disability levels as well as costs of trauma care are recommended.

Language: en