Medical Efforts and Injury Patterns of Military Hospital Patients Following the 2013 Lushan Earthquake in China: A Retrospective Study

Peng Kang, Bihan Tang, Yuan Liu, Xu Liu, Zhipeng Liu, Yipeng Lv and Lulu Zhang
Additional contact information
Peng Kang: Institute of Military Health Management, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Rd, 200433, Shanghai, China
Bihan Tang: Institute of Military Health Management, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Rd, 200433, Shanghai, China
Yuan Liu: Institute of Military Health Management, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Rd, 200433, Shanghai, China
Xu Liu: Institute of Military Health Management, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Rd, 200433, Shanghai, China
Zhipeng Liu: Institute of Military Health Management, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Rd, 200433, Shanghai, China
Yipeng Lv: Institute of Military Health Management, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Rd, 200433, Shanghai, China
Lulu Zhang: Institute of Military Health Management, Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiangyin Rd, 200433, Shanghai, China

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate medical efforts and injury profiles of victims of the Lushan earthquake admitted to three military hospitals. This study retrospectively investigated the clinical records of 266 admitted patients evacuated from the Lushan earthquake area. The 2005 version of the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS-2005) was used to identify the severity of each injury. Patient demographic data, complaints, diagnoses, injury types, prognosis, means of transportation, and cause of injury were all reviewed individually. The statistical analysis of the study was conducted primarily using descriptive statistics. Of the 266 patients, 213 (80.1%) were admitted in the first two days. A total of 521 injury diagnoses were recorded in 266 patients. Earthquake-related injuries were primarily caused by buildings collapsing (38.4%) and victims being struck by objects (33.8%); the most frequently injured anatomic sites were the lower extremities and pelvis (34.2%) and surface area of the body (17.9%). Fracture (41.5%) was the most frequent injury, followed by soft tissue injury (27.5%), but crush syndrome was relatively low (1.2%) due to the special housing structures in the Lushan area. The most commonly used procedure was suture and dressings (33.7%), followed by open reduction and internal fixation (21.9%).The results of this study help formulate recommendations to improve future disaster relief and emergency planning in remote, isolated, and rural regions of developing countries.

Keywords: injury; injury patterns; rescue management; military hospital; Lushan; earthquake injuries; natural disaster; medical evacuation; trauma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/9/10723/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/9/10723/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:12:y:2015:i:9:p:10723-10738:d:55061

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().