Association of pre-hospital care and injury severity among road traffic injured patients admitted in Addis Ababa public hospitals Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2018-10
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Background: Globally, about 1.25 million people die every year due to road traffic related cases
and as many as 50 million more are injured and it is a number one cause for the death among
those aged 15-29 years. Ethiopia is one of the countries with the highest number of road traffic
injuries in the world. Pre-hospital care play an important role in life support services. The present
study was carried out to assess the association of pre-hospital care and injury severity for road
traffic accident victims in Addis Ababa public hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Methods: A facility based cross sectional study design was used. Systematic random sampling
was used to reach 391 road traffic injured patients from public hospitals.Both patient medical
report and a structured questionnaire which is adopted from standardized tool from WHOwas
used. Kampala Trauma Score II (KTS II) was calculated for the outcome variable injury severity
and was ranked as severe injury and non-severe injury. Data was entered to Epidata 4.2 and
exported and analyzed through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version
20.Descriptive analysis was conducted to determine with frequency, proportions and summary
measure. Bivariate and multivariable logistic regression was used to identify the relation of
independent predictors with the injury severity. The p value less than 0.05 was considered for
statistical significance.
Results: A total of 385 road traffic injured victims were included. Participants who scored
severe injury were 22.9%. The male to female ratio was 2:1. The patient’s ages range from 15-
80, with a mean of 32 and standard deviation of ± 12 years. Pedestrians (48.6%) who were
travelling were the majority of road traffic crash victims. More than half of the patients did not
get any kind of pre-hospital care before reaching to health facility. Frequently raised reasons for
this were lack of equipment (50.6%) and poor knowledge (36.8%). People who had pre-hospital
care were less likely to develop severe injury (AOR 0.4595% CI (0.24,0.842)). Additionally, age
of the patient and being a driver significantly influenced injury severity score.
Conclusion:Road traffic accident constitute major public health problem causing a burden in the
health care system. Integrating pre-hospital care in the health care system also plays a major role
in minimizing further damage caused by RTA.
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Keywords
Road trafficinjury,Pre-hospital care,Injury severity.