TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2014//
TI  - The structure of trauma patients, its management and health care in the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis
JO  - Folia Medica (Plovdiv)
A1  - Tsatsanidis, Georgios V.
A1  - Minopoulos, Georgios I.
A1  - Liratzopoulos, Nicolaos D.
A1  - Papathanasiou, Jannis V.
A1  - Simopoulos, Konstantinos E.
SP  - 50
EP  - 55
VL  - 56
IS  - 1
N2  - OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to describe the patterns of trauma patients using a newly-introduced trauma registry, as well as retrospectively assess the management and outcome facts of these patients. <br><br>MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study included 2346 patients (62.15% male) with a mean age of 34.06 +/- 23.77 years. Of these patients, 355 were multiple trauma patients. Privately owned vehicles were used as a mode of transportation for most of the trauma patients (96.65%). Data regarding patient demographics, arrival at the Emergency Department, mechanism of injury, injury severity, anatomical location and type of injury were collected and analyzed. <br><br>RESULTS: Falls were the most prevalent mechanism of injury, accounting for 62.19% of the total admitted cases, with other causes (that also included occupational accidents and machinery trauma) being the second most prevalent, and MVAs--the third with a rate of 11.46%. The most commonly injured body regions were the extremities (50.26%), the head (42.50%), and the torso (19.39%). Fractures represented 11.46% of the injuries, while open wounds were much more frequent (29.41%). The mean abbreviated injury severity (AIS) score was 1.78 +/- 1.48 for all admitted patients and 3.56 +/- 1.02 for multiple trauma patients. A multi-disciplinary approach was required for 23% of the multiple trauma patients. The clinic admission rate for the whole patient sample was 13.55% and 48.96% for multiple trauma patients. The mean duration of stay for all clinic admissions was 2.7 days and 2.9 days for multiple trauma patients. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: With the epidemiology of trauma in Greece being rather poorly investigated, the present study manages to identify the major epidemiological patterns of trauma cases presenting to a tertiary regional hospital and addresses the need for development and implementation of injury prevention activities and policies.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0204-8043
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -