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Abstract |
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Road traffic Injury is a major public health problem with higher mortality, morbidity, and disability. Trauma due to road traffic accidents (RTA) is the leading cause of mortality in young people and one of the commonest causes of death overall. The paper aimed to study the incidence of injuries due to RTA among the patients admitted to Lashio General Hospital. It was cross-sectional descriptive study conducted during August 2012 to July 2013. Among 3268 injury patients, 44.7%(1462) were caused by RTA. Of these (1462), male were 70.5%(1031) and female were 29.5%(431). Mean age was 29±14.3 years. Majority of patients, 76.7%(1121) were motor-cycle users. Motor-car (motor-vehicles), pedestrian, tricycle, bicycle, cart and train were used by 12.8%(187), 8.3%(121), 1.7%(25), 0.4%(6), 0.1%(1) and 0.1%(1) of patients, respectively. Nearly half of the patients, 42.5%(621) were injured at lower limb. It was followed by head, upper limb, face, chest, abdomen, back, neck and perineum injuries in 34.8%(509), 22.2%(324), 21.5%(314), 8.4%(123), 4.7%(68), 2.9%(43), 1.6%(23) and 0.8%(12) of patients, respectively. Blunt injury causing bruise and abrasion were observed in 59.9%(876) of patients. It was followed by laceration, bone fracture, crush injury, penetration, sharp incision, joint dislocation, burn and inhalational injury in 40.2%(587), 17.2%(252), 1.7%(25), 0.8%(11), 0.6%(10), 0.5%(7), 0.2%(3) and 0.1%(1) of patients, respectively. As a conclusion, head injury was second commonest injury in this study and deaths from head injury were observed in 70%(55/79) of all deaths due to RTA (p=0.001). Neuro-surgical management was the important role in care of head injury and Neuro-surgical specialty was needed for Lashio hospital. |
