Abstract:
Background: Traumatic brain injury is a staggering health issue that imposes serious threats
and medical concerns to public health not only in Ethiopia but also worldwide. As defined by
The Working Group on Demographics and Clinical Assessment of the International
Interagency Initiative Toward Common Data Elements for Research in traumatic brain injury
and Psychological Health, TBI is “an alteration of brain function, or an evidence of brain
pathology, that is caused by an external force. They are commonly encountered surgical
problem in emergency department and a common cause of morbidity and mortality
necessitating a study on their prevalence and clinical characteristics.
Objectives: Primary aim of this study is to assess, clinical characteristics and outcomes of
Traumatic Brain Injury patients at Jimma University Medical Center.
Methods: An institution based cross sectional study was conducted on all patients visiting
Jimma University Medical Center from February 1,2014 to July 30, 2014 who sustain
Traumatic Injury to Brain. Data was collected using structured questionnaires from patient
charts over 6 months’ period. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 24.
Descriptive analysis will be used to describe the data while multivariate regression analysis
was applied to determine the association between dependent and independent variable. A pvalue <0.05 was considered significant. Tables and figures were used to describe the results.
Result and conclusion: A total of 239 trauma victims’ registries were reviewed and included
for analysis. The mean and (SD) of the age of the victims was 18 ±13.7 years. Young ages and
male gender were most affected with male to female ratio of 4 to 1. The major cause of TBI was
road traffic injury (n=61, 25.5%). 67.4 % of the total patients had traumatic brain CT findings
and 68 (28.5%) skull bone fracture (linear, BSF&DSF) was the commonest. Concerning
management outcome of TBI patients 97.1% were discharged and mechanism of injury, duration
of time to reach ED, GCS at admission, type of intervention given, and length of in the ED were
independent factors associated with unfavorable out- comes and found to have statistically
significant association with the outcome.
