Causes of Admission, Prescribing Patterns, and Outcomes Among Trauma Patients Visiting the Department of Trauma and Emergency at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Bihar, India: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Introduction Trauma is one of the most common, preventable causes of mortality globally. Its burden is rising, particularly in low- and middle-income nations, and hence, it is being acknowledged as an epidemic. The factors responsible for the high burden of trauma and trauma-related morbidity and mortality in resource-limited countries need to be identified and quantified. Additionally, there is a paucity of data from our setting on prescribing patterns among trauma victims. We, therefore, aimed to evaluate the burden, attributes, and outcomes of trauma as well as the prescribing patterns among trauma victims. Objectives The primary objective was to evaluate the burden, characteristics, and outcomes of trauma, whereas the secondary objective was to evaluate the prescribing patterns among trauma patients visiting the Department of Trauma and Emergency. Methods This was a hospital record-based, cross-sectional study conducted in the Department of Trauma and Emergency in collaboration with the Department of Pharmacology at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), Patna, which required a sample size of 369. The primary outcome was the prevalence of trauma, its characteristics, and death, presented as numbers with percentages, whereas the secondary outcome was the frequency of drugs prescribed from various classes. Results Out of 4,642 patients who visited the trauma and emergency department during the study, 1,137 were trauma patients. Thus, the prevalence of trauma in the study population was 24.49%. People aged between 20 and 40 years were the most affected (193, 52.30%), and most of the trauma victims were men (293, 79.40%). Rural people (284, 76.96%) were about four times more affected than urban ones (85, 23.04%). The street/highway was the most common place (124, 33.60%) for incidents, the time between 16:00 and 19:59 hours was the most common time of occurrence of incidents (93, 25.20%), and the ambulance was the most common mode of transportation (148, 40.11%) of trauma victims. Road traffic accidents were the most common cause of trauma, accounting for 152 (41.19%) of cases, while head injuries were the most common type of injury reported in 132 (35.77%) of cases. Analgesics, antibiotics, antiulcer and antiemetics, and intravenous fluids were major classes of drugs prescribed in 369 (100%), 369 (100%), 323 (87.53%), and 281 (76.19%) of cases, respectively. Out of 369 trauma patients under study, 28 (7.59%) cases died. Conclusion The prevalence of trauma among patients admitted to the trauma and emergency department was 20%. Road traffic accident was the most common cause of trauma, while head injury was the most common type of injury. Among the various classes of drugs, analgesics and antibiotics were the most consistently prescribed drugs. About 8% of trauma patients admitted to the trauma and emergency department died.