Abstract
Background: Among patients with trauma, those with self-harm show different characteristics, such as frequency, damage area, and degree of trauma, from those who experienced general accidents. In cases of severe injuries, it is difficult to conduct accurate imaging tests during initial treatment, making it difficult to predict the exact area of damage and make decisions for definitive care. Identifying correlations betweendamage area and degree can help predict the damage area to aid in treatment. We aimed to identify the differences in characteristics between patients who experienced general accidents and those who attempted suicide.
We retrospectively reviewed the data of patients with trauma transferred to the emergency department of our hospital from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2023. Age, sex, trauma mechanism, intention of suicide, Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) score, injury severityscore (ISS),and height for fall were analyzed in 10,180 patients. Intentionality was divided into accidentandself-harm, and the characteristics of the two groups were analyzed and compared.
Results: The accident group follows the characteristics of the entire group, but in the self-harm group, falls (41.0%) and stab or cut wounds(48.9%) are overwhelmingly high, and the average age of the self-harm group was younger than that in the accident group by 10 years.In the accident fall group, the average fall height was 4.14 m, and the ISS was 15.5 points, while the average height of the self-harmgroup was 10.8 m, and ISS was 18.6 points. In the self-harm group, people in their teens and 20s mainly attempted to fall, and people in their 40s and 50s mainly attempted self-harm with knives.
Conclusion: In this study, we confirmed the relationship between the injury mechanism and AIS in patients with trauma, and compared the self-harm group and the accident group, confirming that the damaged area and degree of damage were different even if the mechanism was the same. In the self-harm group, falls and stab or cut wounds are common, and in the case of falls, there is a characteristic difference from the general accident group in terms of height, severity, and damaged area. It is expected that understanding the characteristics of patients who self-harmed can help initial treatment in the emergency room, reduce missed injuries, and establish an appropriate diagnosis and treatment plan.