Accidents and violence: characteristics of the medical cares in the emergency room's university hospital

Abstract

This article, of an exploratory-descriptive character, aims to characterize the medical care provided in cases of accidents and violence in the emergency room of a university hospital, located in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS). The data were obtained from the registers of a monitoring system called "Observatório de Acidentes e Violência" (Observatory of Accidents and Violence), which exists in the urgency and emergency services in RS and acts as a sentry of these injuries. The results showed that young adults who are non-workers and have low schooling are the main victims of accidents and violence. The most frequent types of occurrence were domestic accidents and traffic accidents, generating as the most constant injuries wounds in the head and femur fractures. With regard to the sex, although for some types of accidents and violence the predominance varied between them, the set of data showed greater masculine vulnerability, especially in cases of interpersonal violence. Thus, the consequences of accidents and violence for the health system and the society point to the need of improving the information systems of morbimortality caused by external causes, in order to subsidize public prevention policies and improve the care provided for the victims.