Estimating the South African trauma caseload

Abstract

A survey of medical superintendents revealed that an estimated 1.5 million trauma cases presented to South Africa's 356 secondary and tertiary level hospitals in 1999. Injury rates for traffic, violence and other injuries showed considerable inter-provincial variation, with violence accounting for more than half of the trauma caseload. This type of survey is a simple low cost alternative for monitoring injury patterns and supplementing burden of disease and injury costing studies.

Keywords:

• Injury
• Trauma
• Non-fatal
• Surveillance. Caseload

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology through the National Innovation Fund for Crime Prevention.