Study on violence

Project: Comparative analysis of self-harm aggressions vs. interpersonal aggressions

Organization: Fundación Trauma

Status: delivered

Relevance

Interpersonal aggression (IA) and self-harm aggression (SA) are among the seven primary injury mechanisms for the entire Trauma Network, and even for these seven injury mechanisms, IAs are the ones with the highest mortality. On the other hand, when evaluating the historical evolution of the distribution of the injury mechanism by year, we observed that these two injury mechanisms remained (and even increased in some years) in the total number of injury mechanisms of the Trauma Network. Given this, we decided to carry out a comparative analysis of these two injury mechanisms corresponding to acts of violence to characterize two aspects:

1. The demographic characteristics of the patients treated for IA and SA.

2. The main features of the care process

Methods

For this analysis, we considered all events for these two injury mechanisms corresponding to patients aged ten years and older admitted to the Trauma Registry of Fundación Trauma between the years 2010 and 2017, constituting a total universe of 5,775 events: 1,872 corresponding to self-harm aggression and 3,903 to Interpersonal aggression. The variables used in the preparation of this study were the following:

• For demographic characterization: (1) Age, (2) Sex, (3) Injury mechanism

• For the characterization of hospital care: (4) Origin, (5) Hospital stay, (6) Type of discharge, (7) Injury severity, (8) Operating room visit

Findings

Interpersonal aggression (IA)

•  91.3% of the UA were male.

•  The age range with the highest incidence of UA was 25-34 years (28.7%).

•  The most frequent ML2 were gunshot wounds (29.7%) and sharp objects (28.4%).

•  43.7% of the incidents due to IA have at least one recorded visit to the operating room.

•  57.7% of the patients treated for UA were discharged from hospital and 17.1% were referred.

•  7.8% of patients treated for UA died.

•  35.6% were hospitalized for 1 day, 40.9% were hospitalized for 2 to 7 days, and 23.4% were hospitalized for 8 days or more.

•  52.5% of the patients had mild injuries and 28.5% had moderate injuries.

•  8% had severe injuries and 6.4% had critical injuries.

Self-harm aggression (SA)

•  59.1% were women

•  The age range with the highest number of events was 25-34 years (as in IA), with 22.8%.

•  The most frequent ML2 was drug use (i.e., drug intoxication).

•  4.1% had an OR visit on record.

•  49.4% of the patients attended by AA were hospitalized for 1 day or less and 35.1% were hospitalized for 2 to 7 days; the remaining 15.3% were hospitalized for 8 days or more.

•  51.1% of patients were discharged from hospital and 24.3% were referred.

•  Almost 5% of patients treated by AA died.

•  For 72.5% of patients treated for IA, the severity of the injury could not be determined.

Data visualization

Data is visualized through digital dashboards developed in Microstrategy. Below is a compound of images of dashboards developed:

Methodologies and tools deployed during this project

• SQL

• RStudio

• Excel

• Microstrategy