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Epidemiology of Unintentional Pediatric Trauma Victims Admitted to a Level 1 Trauma Center of North India: A
Vikas Verma1, Syed Faisal Afaque1, Durga Krishna Narayanadas1
1Department of Paediatric Orthopaedics, King George's Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Insights
Unintentional pediatric trauma epidemiology varies by age, gender, injury cause, and location. Understanding these factors is crucial for effective prevention strategies in children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Trauma Research
- Epidemiology
- Injury Prevention
Background:
- Preventing unintentional pediatric trauma necessitates understanding demographic and injury-specific factors.
- Key factors influencing trauma epidemiology include age, gender, injury mechanism, and location.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze how sociodemographic and health system factors impact the epidemiology of unintentional pediatric trauma.
- To identify variations in pediatric trauma based on patient characteristics and injury circumstances.
Main Methods:
- Prospective observational study conducted over one year at a level one trauma center.
- Data collected included demographics, injury details (mechanism, type, region), severity (ISS), and healthcare factors (referral, transport, insurance).
- Subgroup analyses were performed to compare different patient and injury categories.
Main Results:
- 320 pediatric trauma victims were enrolled; 60.6% resulted from road traffic accidents.
- Significant variations in injury patterns were observed across different age groups, genders, and injury mechanisms.
- Differences in referral patterns, insurance status, and treatment choices were noted between urban and rural populations.
Conclusions:
- The epidemiology of unintentional pediatric trauma is significantly influenced by age, gender, mechanism of injury, and geographic location.
- These findings highlight the need for tailored prevention and intervention strategies based on specific risk factors.
- Understanding these epidemiological variations is essential for improving outcomes in pediatric trauma care.
Context:
Preventing unintentional pediatric trauma requires an understanding of the effect of age, gender, mechanism of injury, and location where injury was sustained on the epidemiology of unintentional pediatric trauma.
Aim:
To delineate the effect of sociodemographic and health system factors on the epidemiology of unintentional pediatric trauma.
Settings And Design:
Prospective observational study conducted over a 1-year period at a level one trauma center.
Materials And Methods:
Recorded information on demographic factors, mechanism of injury, type of injury, the anatomical region involved, injury severity score (ISS), time since injury to hospitalization, referral status, level of the referring facility, mode of transport to the trauma center, treatment-related factors, outcome of hospital stay, and enrollment in the insurance.
Statistical Analysis:
Subgroup analysis.
Results:
Three hundred twenty paediatric trauma victims (male to female ratio was 2.1:1) with a mean age of 10.6 years and a mean ISS of 11.8 ± 5.6 were enrolled. Road traffic accidents contributed to 60.6% of cases. Significant differences were observed in the mechanism of injury (P < 0.001), type of injury (P < 0.001), referral pattern (P = 0.005), ISS (P = 0.015), and time to admission (P = 0.001) among age categories. Significant differences were observed in the mechanism of injury (P = 0.013), anatomical region (P = 0.001), place of injury (P = 0.015), and choice of treatment (P = 0.014) among genders. Significant differences were observed in insurance status (P = 0.010), anatomical region (P < 0.001), place of injury (P = 0.020), referral pattern (P < 0.001), and choice of treatment (P = 0.019) among children injured due to different mechanisms. Significant differences were observed in gender (P = 0.015), insurance status (P = 0.009), mechanism of injury (P = 0.020), type of injury (P = 0.036), referral pattern (P = 0.003), and choice of treatment (P = 0.001) among children injured in urban and rural areas.
Conclusion:
Epidemiology of unintentional pediatric trauma varies significantly across age, gender, mechanism, and the location where the child sustained the injury.
