Initial Injury Type and Violent Reinjury

Area of Science:

• Trauma surgery
• Public health
• Epidemiology

Background:

• Violent injuries are a leading cause of death in the US, particularly among children and young adults.
• The risk of subsequent violent injury (reinjury) after an initial violent injury is known, but patterns across different injury types require further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe patterns of violent reinjury across different injury types (blunt assault, stabbing, firearm).
• To inform the development of tailored prevention strategies for violent injuries.

Main Methods:

• Multicenter cohort study including patients with violent injuries from adult and pediatric trauma centers.
• Classification of violent injuries into blunt assault, stabbing, and firearm categories.
• Kaplan-Meier time-to-event analyses to estimate the probability of violent reinjury at 1, 5, and 7 years.

Main Results:

• Out of 29,810 individuals with violent injuries, 13.4% experienced reinjury.
• The 7-year probability of any reinjury was highest for initial stabbing (19.5%) and blunt assault (17.4%) injuries.
• Individuals with index blunt assault injuries were more likely to experience blunt assault reinjury (13.2% at 7 years).

Conclusions:

• Reinjury following violent injury is common and varies significantly by initial injury type.
• Differing contextual factors likely contribute to these varied reinjury risks.
• Effective prevention of violent reinjury necessitates addressing the root causes of repeated violence exposure.