Abstract

Introduction: Trauma is recognized as one of the most causes of mortality in developing countries and the most important reasons of disability in active and productive population as well as its economic and social shocks. Extremity fracture is one of the most common complications of trauma inflict upon the human and involves an extensive part of health center facilities. Thus, the present study was aimed to assess the epidemiology of lower and upper extremity fractures of hospitalized patients in Shahid Beheshti hospital, Babol, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on patients with extremity fractures who had hospitalized in the Shahid Beheshti hospital, Babol, through 2001-2006. The required information included age, gender, type of fracture, and trauma mechanism were extracted from documents and registered in the prepared questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS 18. Results: During six years study, 3507 trauma patients with extremity fracture had been hospitalized (75.9% was male). The mean age of studied patients was 33.7±21.8. Six hundred and nineteen (17.7%) fracture cases was as open status. Hip fracture was the most common fracture type (34.6%). Trauma mechanism in 1701 (48.5%) was car accident, 671 (19.1%) motorcycle accident, 608 (17.3%) stumble, 466 (13.3%) fall from height, and 61 (1.7%) other cases. The most common site of fracture in car and motorcycle accidents was leg (38.8% and 52.5% respectively) and in stumble and fall from height was hip (46.8% and 30.9% respectively). Conclusion: The findings of this project revealed that the most common type of extremity fracture in trauma patients in the age groups of upper and lower of 60 were hip and leg, respectively. Furthermore, the most incidence mechanism of such fractures was motorcycle accident.

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