Patients presenting to a State Hospital with injuries from Motor Vehicle Crash

Abstract

Objectives: To determine demographic characteristics, accident location, and to elucidate transport time and mortality of patients presenting after motor vehichle crash to the emergency department at Erzurum Numune Hospital.
Materials and Methods: 1200 traffic accident victims (897 males [74.8%], 303 females [25.2%]; mean age 31.47±18.67; range 2 months to 92 years) (TAV) who arrived at our emergency service (ES) in the year 2005 and also recorded in the police forensic data were studied retrospectively. The data were analyzed in SPSS 11.01 and χ2 test and t test were used for statistics.
Results: The mortality rate of TAV was 1.3%. 16 TAV died in ES or before entering ES, with female/male proportion of 1: 2 and with the mean age 25.7±23.1 (range 2-69 years). The highest mortality rate was for patients below 18 years old (2.6%). The mean age of the patients arrived from neighbouring cities was higher (p<0.005). Secondary transportation ratio of the TAV was 29.16% and the hospitalisation rate was 11.08%. Secondary transportation (33.8%) and hospitalisation rate (22.1%) was highest for TAV who were older than 65 years (p<0.01).
Conclusion: Large number of TAV are secondarily transported to our hospital from Erzurum counties (38%) and neigbouring cities (19.7%). The rate of the TAV who come from at least 100 km distance to our hospital is 31%. The distance to our hospital and the patients age, are correlated to secondary transportation and hospitalisation rates.