What did the study look at?
Musculoskeletal injuries (trauma) are a public health concern that substantially increases the workload of emergency services and hospitals. The authors aimed to obtain basic data to support the effective and reliable design of a national trauma registry system.
The study addressed three questions: how many trauma patients presented to emergency health services within Ankara province over the five-year period; how these patients were distributed by month, year and injured body region; and how the emergency responses ended.
How was it done?
This was a retrospective registry study. Patients given a preliminary diagnosis of musculoskeletal injury by emergency teams in Ankara between January 2014 and December 2018 were identified from the Emergency Health Automation System (EHAS) of the Ankara Provincial Directorate of Health.
- Patients with incomplete records and those who died were excluded.
- Patients were grouped by age, sex, and the hour and month of injury.
- Injuries were classified using ICD-10 codes into upper limb (wrist and hand, elbow and forearm, shoulder and upper arm), lower limb (ankle and foot, knee and lower leg, hip and thigh) and multiple injuries.
- The study was approved by the local ethics committee.
What did it find?
- Of 32,749 patients, 19,523 (59.61%) were male and 13,226 (40.39%) were female.
- The highest number of patients was seen in 2017 (8,951), and patient numbers rose by 37.90% between 2015 and 2016.
- By month, the most patients were seen in April (3,284) and August (3,251); across the five years, injuries were concentrated between the 4th and 10th months.
- Most cases occurred between 12:00 and 18:59 (14,596 cases), with no significant difference between the sexes.
- The hip and thigh was the most frequently injured region (23.34%), followed by the ankle and foot (18.58%) and multiple injuries (16.48%).
- In total, 64.21% of patients were transferred to hospital; death at the scene occurred in 33 patients (0.10%).
The authors' conclusion
The authors state that this is the first study in Turkey to analyse data from emergency health service providers and that it can be regarded as a pilot study for removing existing shortcomings and improving registry systems by updating them. They note that properly kept records could support management planning, cost analyses and the allocation of extra staff during months and hours of high patient volume.
Limitations
The weakness noted by the authors is that the distribution of patients across regions within Ankara and their final diagnoses could not be assessed. As strengths, they cite the large number of patients, low data loss and the ability to observe distribution by month and time of day.
Reference
Can İ, Akkaya M, Bekgöz B, Şimşek ME, Gürsoy S, Kaya Ö. (2022). Retrospective analysis of 32,749 patients: A pilot orthopedic trauma registry study in Ankara province. Ankara Medical Journal, 22(2), 204-214.
DOI: 10.5505/amj.2022.17136
Free full text: Ankara Medical Journal
This article summarises a published scientific paper for general information; it does not replace an examination or a personal medical assessment. Please consult your doctor about your symptoms.
