Prevalence And Factors Associated With Head Injuries Among Patients Admitted To The Emergency Unit At Mulago Hospital

Abstract

Background: Globally about 5.8 million people die each year as a result of injuries where head injuries account for over 80% of the deaths. These mainly happen to people aged between 10 to 49 years due to mainly road accidents. Major causes include; personal characteristics such as young age, behaviors like drunk driving and poor state of the roads couple with non adherence to traffic laws (WHO, 2010). There are increasing cases of head injuries in Uganda which attracted the researcher to carry out a study is to determine the prevalence and factors associated with traumatic head injuries among patients in Mulago Hospital as defined by the Kampala Trauma Score (KTSII) which is a locally developed. Methods: An analytical single center cross sectional study conducted on patients attending Mulago national Referral Hospital (MNRH) accident and emergency unit using an assisted semi-structured questionnaire from periods running 1 st October 2017 to 30 th October 2017 extracted from HMIS 031. Consecutively recruited into the study after obtaining consent or waiver was done. Severity was determined as per the KTSII. Data obtained was entered and analyzed using STATA version 14 software to determine the association between head injury status and the independent characteristics of the patients. The use of binary logistic regression was used and considered statistically significant at 95% CI with a P<0.2 and P<0.05 for the independent variables at both bivariate and multivariate levels respectively. Results: Prevalence of traumatic HI was 25.6% (n=64) with severity of THI reported at 68.7% (n=44). Prevalence of traumatic head injuries is high. Being children or in bereavementaOR7.525 (1.220 – 46.433), low levels of education AOR 12.024 (3.168 – 45.636), utilization of „boda boda‟ AOR 3.055 (1.115 – 8.373) or inconsistent public transport AOR 5.511 (1.414 – 21.487) were associated factors to head injuries while frequent use of public transport more than thrice weekly was noted to be protective AOR> 6 (P-value <0.018).Multi-sectoral approach model needs to be devised to handle prevention of head injuries. Conclusion and recommendation: Incidence of head injuries mainly depended on gender, geographical region of origin in Uganda and educational level of the respondent. Individual factors included; alcohol consumption by the victims and frequency of transport utilization. The researcher therefore suggests that, victims should avoid drunk driving and observation of traffic laws.