Retrospective analysis of pediatric road traffic accidents admitted to the emergency department of a university hospital

Abstract

Aim: Road traffic accidents are common in our country, but there are not many scientific studies related to childhood road trafficaccidents. We aimed to report the frequency of road traffic accidents in children, the demographic characteristics of the patients, thephysical effects of accidents on children and their results.Material and Methods: Study data were obtained by retrospective screening of the files of pediatric cases presenting to our emergencydepartment because of road traffic accident between September 2017-2018. The cases were evaluated in terms of age, gender, typeof accidents, type of injury, radiologic imaging rates, hospitalization and mortality rates.Results: 377 cases were reviewed. 136 (36.1%) patients were female and 241 (63.9%) were male. 36.9% (n=139) of the admissionswere in summer. According to the occurrence of accidents, in-vehicle traffic accidents constituted 61.8% (n=233) of the cases.Among isolated injuries the most common site of injury was head and neck region (n=120, 31.8%). In 81.4% (n=307) of the casestomography, in 72.1% (n = 273) of cases X-ray, in 25.7% (n=96) of cases ultrasound were requested. 270 (72.2%) patients weredischarged from the emergency department with the diagnosis of soft tissue trauma. 58 (15.4%) patients were hospitalized in therespective clinics and 43 (11.4%) patients were hospitalized in the intensive care unit. It was detected that 8 patients (2.1%) died, 4of them occurred in the emergency department.Conclusion: Pediatric road traffic accidents mostly occur in the summer and most of them are in-vehicle accidents. Boys are moreexposed to road traffic accidents. Injuries in traffic accidents mostly locate in the head and neck regions followed by extremities. Itwas found that tomographic imaging was overused in our study. New strategies should be developed to reduce tomography overuse.