Factors Affecting Length of Hospitalization for patients with Acute Abdominal Trauma

Abstract

Trauma or injury has been defined as damage to the body caused by an exchange with environmental energy that is beyond the body's resilience. Trauma includes intentional and unintentional injury from motor vehicle crashes, penetrating or blunt violence, falls, firearms, poisoning, and burns. Pre-hospital systems have been studied extensively to optimize the initial care of trauma patients (Panchal & Ramanuj, 2016). According to World Health Organization (2013), traumatic injuries account for approximately 10% of mortality worldwide. The Abdomen is the third most frequently injured body region. Abdominal trauma accounts for 22% of body regions injured in major trauma and can be difficult to diagnose and manage. About 25% of all abdominal trauma cases require an abdominal exploration. Around 7-10 % of all trauma-related deaths occurred due to missed abdominal injuries (Babak et al., 2016). Additional hospital days represent an estimated 20% of the total length of stay in acute care hospitals. Extra days can cause waste of resources as well as increased patient exposure to adverse events and functional decline. Reducing the length of stay has been identified as one of the core strategies for alleviating health care financial pressure and improving patient outcomes. Other than the poor quality of care, many factors are now being considered as drivers of unnecessarily prolonged hospital stays (Busby et al., 2017).