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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: To determine: (i) the prevalence of chronic physical health conditions reported pre-injury, at the time of injury, up to one year post-injury and 1-5 years post-injury; and (ii) the risk of chronic physical health conditions reported 1-5 years post-injury in people with orthopaedic and other types of major trauma.
DESIGN: Cohort study using linked trauma registry and health administrative datasets SETTING: This study used linked data from the Victorian State Trauma Registry (VSTR), the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM), the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED) and the Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD). PARTICIPANTS: 28,522 adult (18 years and over) major trauma patients, registered by the VSTR, with dates of injury from 2007 to 2016, who survived to at least one year post-injury, were included in this study. Major trauma cases were classified into four groups: i) orthopaedic injury, ii) severe traumatic brain injury (s-TBI), iii) spinal cord injury, and iv) other major trauma. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Prevalence of chronic physical health conditions RESULTS: The cumulative prevalence of any chronic physical health condition for all participants was 69.3%. The s-TBI group had the highest cumulative prevalence of conditions. The most common conditions were arthritis and arthropathies, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Pre-injury chronic conditions were most common in people in people with severe TBI (19.3%), while they were least common in people with 'other' types of major trauma (6.6%). The highest prevalence of new-onset conditions following injury was found in people with severe TBI (21.7%) and orthopaedic major trauma (21.4%), while the lowest prevalence was found in people with 'other' types of major trauma (9.2%). For the orthopaedic injury group, there were no significant differences in the adjusted risk of conditions reported 1-5 years post-injury compared to other major trauma groups.
CONCLUSION(S): Chronic physical health conditions were common among all injury groups. There was no significant difference in the risk of chronic conditions among injury groups. Rehabilitation practitioners should be aware of the risk of chronic conditions in people with orthopaedic and other types of major trauma. Long-term follow-up care following injury should include prevention and treatment of chronic conditions.
Language: en |