Van Tıp Dergisi (Jan 2019)

The Effect of Blood Ethanol Level on Mortality in Patients with Trauma

  • Burak Altan,
  • Muhammed İkbal Şaşmaz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5505/vtd.2019.83713
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 26, no. 1
pp. 53 – 60

Abstract

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INTRODUCTION: Traumatic injuries and deaths are considered an important health problem in worldwhile. Criteria to detect the severity of the trauma must be measurable and comparable objective criteria. A significant portion of the traffic accidents in Turkey were found to be associated with ethanol intake. In this study, we tried to find out the relationship between blood alcohol level and trauma mortality and severity of traffic accident patients. METHODS: This study was performed on 720 patients who applied to our Emergency Department from 1 June 2012 to 1 June 2013. We performed the study on 360 intoxicated and alcohol free patients at similar characteristics. Our variables were age, gender, trauma time, trauma mechanism, Glasgow Coma Scale, trauma scales and patient recovery process, and blood alcohol levels. Data was analysed with SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) Windows v.19.0 performing Kolmogorov Smirnov, Chi-square, Mann Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test. p<0.05 was defined as statistically significant. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 35.19+-13.14. 80.1% of the patients were male and 19.9% were female. No statistically significant data was collected between gender age and alcohol levels (p>0.05). Traumas mostly occur at weekends and at 16: 00 o‘clock. Patients with alcohol intoxication usually met between 00: 00 - 04: 00 (p<0.05). No statistically relevant data were shown between GCS and RTS between intoxicated and non-intoxicated patients but ISS and TRISS levels were statistically higher in alcohol intoxicated patients (p<0.05). Administration rates and mortality were not effected (p<0.05). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: As a result; ethanol levels affects the trauma severity on intoxicated traffic accident victims that was brought to Emergency Department. However, the impact of the severity of trauma on the individual is more significant in terms of Emergency Departments.

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