Trauma in a district general hospital

Objectives: To analyze all trauma patients admitted to our hospital over a one year period. Design: A prospective hospital-based study. Setting: Qatif Central Hospital. Subjects: All patients presented to the Accident and Emergency Department with trauma excluding bums. Results: Nine hundred and sixteen patients presented to the hospital following trauma. The most common cause was road traffic accidents (55.8%). The next two common causes were an accidental fall (18.3%) and fall from height (10.2%). Twelve patients had missile injuries and stab wound were inflicted in 17 patients. Children below 15 years of age formed 40.6% of those admitted following trauma and 38% of those following road traffic accidents. Seventy-one patients had multisystem injuries and 67 of these sustained their injuries in road traffic accidents. Forty-two suffered abdominal injuries and 68 had chest injuries. Thirty-five patients died giving an overall mortality of 3.8%. Conclusions: Trauma is a major public health problem. It calls for urgent and concerted action aimed at prevention if not total elimination of the preventable causes of morbidity and mortality. Improvement in trauma care in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be possible with the creation and organization of regional trauma centers, trauma audit and trauma registry.