Analysis of tourist patients presented with trauma to the emergency department

Abstract

Introduction: To define the demographic features of trauma patients who are traveling as a tourist in Antalya and to constitute a database about the precautions in order to prevent the possible morbidities and mortalities.
Material and Method: The demographic features of tourist trauma patients presented to the Emergency Department (ED) of Akdeniz University Hospital between 01.01.2003-30.09.2004 were obtained retrospectively from Foreign National Patient Department, patient charts and ICD-10 database.
Results: 405 tourist patients presented with trauma during the study period. Tourists come from East Europe composed the leading patient group (279 patients; 70%). 111 (27%) of the remaining patients were from European Union countries and 15 (3%) were from other countries. Falling was the cause of trauma in 168 patients and among the remaining 237 patients motor vehicle passenger accident, motorcycle accident, hit to something and to be injured by someone were the other trauma causes respectively. 127 (31%) patients were hospitalized and 278 (69%) discharged from ED in order to be followed as outpatient. Patients were mostly hospitalized to the orthopedics (50 patients, 13%) and neurosurgery (27 patients, 6%) wards respectively. Extremity injuries were the diagnosis determined mostly from ICD-10 codes (268 patients, 66%). 67 patients were undergone an operation and 6 patients were died. The mean hospitalization period was 1.37 days. Conclusion: Trauma is one of the most important causes of foreign nation patient presentations to the ED. Most of the tourist patients discharge from ED. However orthopedic injuries and head traumas were the leading causes of mortality and morbidity. The other tourist patients admitted to different hospitals should be considered during the interpretation of the results of this study.