Injuries, unintentional or intentional constitute a major public health problem. They are a leading cause of death for both sexes and in all age groups. Injuries kill more than 5.8 million people worldwide each year and cause many more cases of disability. The leading causes of fatal injury are road traffic accident (RTA), interpersonal violence, self-harm, war, drowning and exposure to fire. This study addressed the issue of different patterns of reported injuries in Izki Hospital, Ad Dakhliya
Methodology
This is a cross sectional, descriptive, based on reviewing the records of patterns of injuries at Izki hospital during 2011 G. Data extraction form was designed to audit all the record pertaining reported injuries from January to December. Four major causes were considered, road traffic accident (RTA), fall, assault and self-harm as they are reported to police for medico-legal purpose.
Results
A total of 440 cases were reported, 77.5% were male, 46.1% in the 16-30 year age group and 87.3% Omanis. Weekends and the month of the December had highest number of injuries occurrence 41.8% and 13.4% respectively. RTA represented the major cause injures 81.1%, among them, 77.6% weremale, 48.7%, were of age group 16-30 years.
Most of the cases 55.9% reached to the hospital between 10-30 minutes after the injury occurrence, 81.8% were transported from accidents site to the emergency room by citizen's private cars. Under half (48.2%) of the injuries were simple or mild injury, head injuries occurred in 46.6%, 28 deaths among all injuries.
Conclusion
Different causes of injuries especially RTAs are major public health problem in our setting, being the main cause of mortality. The lack of advanced pre-hospital care and ineffective ambulance system for transportation of patients to hospital are major challenges in providing care for trauma patients in our environment and have contributed significantly to poor outcome of these patients.