Prehospital Trauma Care Registry Problems in South Brazil

Abstract

Background: Trauma registry remains a great problem to most countries that are implementing trauma systems. Nondigital data assessment and storage may lead to information deterioration along the process. In order to verify the missing registry in prehospital trauma rescuers' form, we ran this study. Study design:A prospective observational noncontrolled study with 288 random trauma cases brought to a Level 1 Trauma Center in Curitiba, between May 28th and June 10th 2006. We analyzed data registered in the prehospital rescue team form. The including criteria were all patients delivered to the trauma center by ambulances. The excluding criteria were patients not transported by ambulances and those without the proper form filled out. Statistical analysis was performed using the Chi-square for discrete, and the student's t-test for continuous variables.Results: Two hundred and eighty-eight trauma cases were observed. Twelve patients were excluded. Of the 276 patients who met the including criteria, 75% were men with a mean age of 27-year-old. In only 8.34% of times patients were brought by doctors, while in 91.66% by paramedics. 63.4% of patients were traffic injuries victims, followed by 12.31% falls, 6.52% falls from the high, 5.79% gunshot wounds, 5.34% assaults, 3.62% stab wounds, 2.89% others. Impressively, 16 patients (5.89%) had no records of respiratory rate from the prehospital care assessment, 20 (7.24%) had no data of systolic blood pressure and 13(4.71%)had no pulse registry. Furthermore, 31.25% of the RR not registered were abnormal in the hospital admission evaluation, as well as 15% of the SBPs, and 23% of HR. None of the cases had information regarding time from the scene to the hospital. Conclusion:Electronic data collection shall make checklists consistently filled out. It is not well understood the importance of registering data for most of healthcare providers working in the field, especially when they do not follow the in-hospital care of trauma patients.