Missed injuries in multi trauma patients

Abstract

The multi-trauma patient has usually sustained multiple traumatic injuries to the body, affecting different organs and body systems. The aim of this study was to assess the reasons for injury concealment in multitrauma patients and provide resolutions to reduce them. In this cross sectional study, 487 patients were evaluated. After collection of needed data, a questionnaire included demographic data, primary diagnosis in emergency ward, graphies conducted in emergency ward, missed injuries, trauma severity was filled for every multitrauma patient who had a missed injury. The relative frequency of multitrauma was 18.51% among all studied trauma patients (487 cases), but 7.6% of included patients had missed injury. Thirty two missed injuries were found in 28 patients. Most injuries were musculoskeletal, involving the distal part of the limbs. Fracture was the most common type of musculoskeletal injury (19 out of 32 missed injuries). Causes that leaded to concealment of injuries were founded to be inadequate physical and/or, radiographic examinations, commonly after severe penetrating injuries which are mostly due to motorcycle accident. Most of the missed injuries have been ultimately diagnosed upon the patient's complaints in hospital wards, within 1 to 30 days after trauma. Repeating examinations during hospitalization and follow-up periods especially in patients suffering from severe trauma and conscious disorder and those hospitalized at ICU, plays an essential role in discovering the missed injuries. é 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information.