Injury
-
This audit uses error theory to analyze inappropriate trauma referrals from rural district hospitals in South Africa. The objective of the study is to inform the design of quality improvement programs and trauma educational programs. ⋯ Rural areas are error prone environments. Errors of execution revolve around the resuscitation process and current trauma courses specifically address these resuscitation deficits. However planning or assessment failure is the most common cause of error with blunt trauma being more prone to error of assessment than penetrating trauma.
-
The objective of this study is to provide a systematic review on ocular injuries induced by glass bottles containing carbonated drinks in China, which emphasised the injury circumstance and visual function loss. ⋯ One in three ocular injuries from glass bottles containing carbonated drinks show severe vision loss. Relevant workers are most frequently injured, followed by inappropriate handlers or openers. Besides manufacturing standards being strictly implemented, many ocular traumas related to bottled carbonated drinks should be prevented through health education.
-
Multicenter Study
A strategy to implement and support pre-hospital emergency medical systems in developing, resource-constrained areas of South Africa.
Resource-constrained countries are in extreme need of pre-hospital emergency care systems. However, current popular strategies to provide pre-hospital emergency care are inappropriate for and beyond the means of a resource-constrained country, and so new ones are needed-ones that can both function in an under-developed area's particular context and be done with the area's limited resources. In this study, we used a two-location pilot and consensus approach to develop a strategy to implement and support pre-hospital emergency care in one such developing, resource-constrained area: the Western Cape province of South Africa. ⋯ Management of the system is done through local Community Based Organizations, which can adapt the model to their communities as needed to ensure local appropriateness and feasibility. Within a community, the system is implemented in a graduated manner based on available resources, and is designed to not rely on the whole system being implemented first to provide partial function. The University of Cape Town's Division of Emergency Medicine and the Western Cape's provincial METRO EMS intend to follow this model, along with sharing it with other South African provinces.
-
Blunt abdominal aortic trauma (BAAT) is a very rare occurrence in children, with significant morbidity and mortality. Varied clinical presentations and sparse literature evidence make it difficult to define the proper management policy for paediatric patients. ⋯ Symptomatic lesions and complete ruptures should undergo immediate surgical repair. Circumferential intimal transections are at high risk of complication and should also receive intervention. Partial intimal transections and delayed pseudoaneurysms can be initially observed by clinical examination and imaging. Patients with these latter pathologies should be operated on at any sign of deterioration.
-
Comparative Study
The ins and outs of terrorist bus explosions: Injury profiles of on-board explosions versus explosions occurring adjacent to a bus.
Terrorist explosions occurring in varying settings have been shown to lead to significantly different injury patterns among the victims, with more severe injuries generally arising in confined space attacks. Increasing numbers of terrorist attacks have been targeted at civilian buses, yet most studies focus on events in which the bomb was detonated within the bus. This study focuses on the injury patterns and hospital utilisation among casualties from explosive terrorist bus attacks with the bomb detonated either within a bus or adjacent to a bus. ⋯ Explosive terrorist attacks detonated within a bus generate more severe injuries among the casualties and require more urgent surgical and intensive level care than attacks occurring adjacent to a bus. The comparison and description of the outcomes to these terrorist attacks should aid in the preparation and response to such devastating events.