Abstract

BEJARANO CASTRO, Mónica et al. Intent-associated factors in injuries of external cause. rev. colomb. cir. [online]. 2006, vol.21, n.4, pp.215-224. ISSN 2011-7582.

Introduction: The increase in the incidence of intentional and nonintentional injuries has become an important public health problem. There has been a recent emphasis on the importance of investigating the «causes» of violence in order to define how to prevent them. The purpose of the present study was to identify factors associated with intentional injuries. Materials and methods: An analytic study was designed based on the registry of the epidemiologic surveillance system of Hospital Mario Correa Rengifo, Cali, Colombia. All patients were included and the descriptive and association measures were calculated. Results: Among the 5,236 persons that were seen because of injuries of external cause in the period November 2003-December 2005, we found that 64% were nonintentional, 32.6% were interpersonal intentional, and 1.6% were self-inflicted. Intentional lesions exhibited positive association with the male sex (OR 8.89), alcohol and or illegal drug consumption (OR 5.61), penetrating stab wounds (OR 23.85), abdominal trauma (OR 7.90), thoracic trauma (OR 7.00), systemic trauma (OR 2.19), and cervical trauma (OR 1.88). Intentional lesions showed a lower Revised Trauma Score (RTS) in comparison with nonintentional lesions (OR 2.32). Conclusions: The hospital epidemiologic surveillance systems permit the evaluation of morbidity and mortality rates and patterns of traumatic lesions of external cause, intentional or nonintentional. Alcohol and illegal drug consumption increase several times the risk of having an intentional lesion and a lesion of greater severity. This information serves the governments to generate preventive programs with the purpose of identifying modifiable variables oriented towards the abolition of violent injuries, especially during weekends.

Keywords : wounds and injuries; intention; violence; population surveillance.

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