Title: Retrospective observational study of Patterns and outcomes of patients with

abdominal trauma who underwent surgical management from single tertiary care
centre
Introduction: . There is an rising trend of injuries, yet trauma management in
the developing world is faced with many challenges owing to paucity of well-
established trauma response teams, emergency systems and poor
infrastructure. The severity of blunt injury is often difficult to assess with
limited resources for EFAST and the operative management is often delayed
resulting in poor outcomes. This study was conducted to determine the
relationship between injury patterns, severity, clinical and operative
complications and outcome (mortality) for patients with blunt trauma
abdomen requiring surgical intervention at a tertiary referral teaching
hospital
Study design and study area: This is a six months retrospective observational
study on the operative management of patients with blunt abdominal trauma
presenting at the accident and emergency (A&E) of the hospital

Study participant’s characteristics

All patients who underwent surgery with a diagnosis of abdominal trauma
presenting at the A&E department and general surgery units were included.
Patients who were operated on at another health facility and later referred to
the hospital, and who were on non-operative management were excluded from
the study. Patients with incomplete data will be excluded from the analysis.

The data noted includes age, gender, interval between injury and admission
and surgery, severity of injury, injury mechanism, pattern of injury,
Hypotension at admission, whether patients were resuscitated on admission
and whether they were taken to the general surgery ward, to the ICU and then
shifted for surgery or directly to the operating theatre, investigations
performed on admission - haematocrit levels, X-rays, abdominal ultrasound,
and CT scans associated extra-abdominal injury and did they require surgical
intervention, damage control surgery or definitive surgery, post-operative
complications, length of stay (LOS) and mortality

Statistical Analysis: SPSS software version 20.0 (IBM SPSS statistics for
Windows NY; IBM Corp) used to perform statistical data analysis. For
categorical variables, data were summarized in proportions and frequency
tables. For continuous variables, medians and inter-quartile ranges (IQRs)
were used to summarize the data. The primary outcome, independent variable
was postoperative in-hospital mortality. P-values for categorical variables
were computed using chi-square (X2) and Fisher’s exact tests in accordance
with the size of the dataset and an independent Student’s t-test for continuous
variables. The variables associated with the outcome were determined using
logistic regression. A P-value of < 0.05 was considered to be significant.