[Attention of crashed patients hurt on the road]

To describe main factors that are important in the attention of crashed patients, in emergency services in Cuernavaca, Morelos, México.

A cross-sectional study that included all people hurt on the road that were attended on emergency services between February and April of 2001. The emergency services of the following hospitals were used: Hospital General Regional 1 of the IMSS, Hospital General "José G. Parres" of the SSA, and two private hospitals, located in Cuernavaca city. The variables were social demography, related to the crash event and the injury that needs medical attention; and dependent variable was the opportunity for the attention. Different kinds of analysis were applied, such as simple, bivaried and of multiple logistic regressions.

382 cases were recorded, 72.2% of them were male victims and the average age was young-adults. The traffic accidents were the main cause of these lesions. Emergency medical attention was required mainly on weekends (57.3%). The main anatomic regions hurt were (46.3%) the head, face and neck; 56% of the wounds were minor, 41.1% of the wounds were serious or severe and only 2.9% of them were extremely severe. The time for attention on the emergency services on Cuernavaca was too long. It was an average of one hour and 56 minutes for serious or severe wounded victims and one hour and 48 minutes for extremely severe wounded victims, and therefore they didn't meet the optimal standard time. The factors associated with opportune medical attention were: high level of education and age, as well as the use of an ambulance to be transported to the hospital and require hospitalization. The severe of the wounds had no influence.

The final model show different social demographic factors as age, level of education and the opportune medical attention. Therefore it is clear that there is not a well emergency system between the different hospitals to provide opportune and effective medical attention.