Characterization of traffic accidents with victims assisted by the mobile emergency care service (samu)
International Journal of Development Research
Characterization of traffic accidents with victims assisted by the mobile emergency care service (samu)
Received 20th March, 2020; Received in revised form 14th April, 2020; Accepted 06th May, 2020; Published online 25th June, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Gláucia de Souza Abreu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Objective: To characterize traffic accidents involving victims assisted by the Mobile Emergency Care Service (SAMU, in its Portuguese initials). Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional, quantitative study, using data from 1,318 records of SAMU occurrences with trauma victims due to traffic accidents attended between 2014 and 2016. Results: There was a high prevalence of traffic accidents (56.2%), with motorcycles being the most commonly recorded (86.0%). The percentage of multiple traumas was 48.0%. The patterns of injuries frequently observed were excoriation (91.9%) and head trauma (88.0%). Trauma usually affected the facial region (60.1%) and the upper limbs (79.0%). Based on the adjusted Poisson model, it was found that traffic accidents showed an association with males (PR = 1.14; 95% CI = 1.06-1.23; p = 0.001), the age group from 20 to 29 years (n = 2.72; 95% CI = 2.26-3.28; p <0.001), weekends (PR = 1.08; 95% CI = 1.02-1, 15; p = 0.013) and multiple traumatic injuries (PR = 1.80; 95% CI = 1.67-1.94; p <0.001). CONCLUSION: Traffic accidents involving motorcycles showed a significant association with the type of trauma mechanism, injuries to the face and limbs, sex and age group.