Injury Prevention
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6 INJURY PREVENTION Carolyn J. Fowler Injury is the most underrecognized public health problem Injury can be prevented or controlled at three levels. facing the nation today. Overall, injuries (unintentional in- Primary prevention involves preventing the event, such as juries, homicides, and suicides combined) account for 7% of the car crash, that has the potential to cause injury. Second- all deaths in the United States each year1,2 and were respon- ary prevention involves preventing an injury or minimizing sible for 167,184 deaths in 2004.1 Between ages 1 and its severity during that crash. Tertiary prevention is optimi- 45 years, unintentional injury alone (without the contribu- zation of outcome through medical treatment and rehabili- tion of homicide and suicide) is the leading cause of death2,3 tation. Trauma nurses will be most familiar with tertiary and the fi fth leading cause of death across all ages in the prevention and to a lesser extent with secondary prevention. United States (Table 6-1).4 Among adolescents and young Development of emergency medical services and systems adults (ages 15 to 24 years), three of every four deaths in and expert trauma management has improved—and will 2003 were injury related.1,5 Injury (unintentional injury, continue to improve—the outcomes of injured patients. homicide, and suicide combined) is the leading cause of However, these advances will never be enough to reduce the premature death for young people and thus is the leading toll of injury-related death signifi cantly. Why? The majority cause of years of potential life lost before the age of 75 years.6 of deaths from traumatic injury occur early. It is estimated The societal cost of injury is enormous. Health care charges that, because of the severity of the injuries, half of all trauma for the treatment of injury represent only a portion of the deaths cannot be prevented with even the best medical total fi nancial burden. Other costs include those associated management.10 For those who survive their injuries, the with loss of income, productivity, and property. Social costs sequelae may be profound and, in some cases, increase that are harder to measure but include pain, suffering, reduced individual’s chance of reinjury.10 Achieving a signifi cant quality of life, lost human potential, and disrupted families. reduction in trauma-related mortality and morbidity there- For the year 2000 alone, the estimated total lifetime cost fore must include attention to primary prevention. Indeed, resulting from injury in the United States was estimated at the American Trauma Society website carries the message $406 billion.7 that when prevention succeeds, trauma is conquered.11 Injury is perceived to be a condition that affects young At some time, all trauma nurses will ask, “Could this have people disproportionately, yet trauma continues to be a been prevented?” Why then has injury prevention received so major health problem throughout life. Despite the obvious little attention in trauma training programs and trauma ser- importance of injury as a cause of premature death, the vices? Trauma, it seems, is so endemic in our society that we highest injury-related death rates are experienced by the fail to realize the enormity of its fi nancial and social costs elderly—a sector of the population that is expected to in- or our potential as a society to reduce its toll. In 1988, crease from 12.4% (in 2000) to 20.4% by the year 2040.8 Dr. William Foege, former director of the Centers for Disease Similarly, our oldest citizens (those older than 75 years) Control and Prevention, called injury “the principal public experience death rates nearly three times those of the gen- health problem in America today.”12 One year later, Surgeon eral population; this group is expected to increase from 5% General C. Everett Koop testifi ed that “if some infectious to 9% of the population in the next three decades.8 Nonfatal disease came along that affected children [in the proportion injuries in the elderly are also a major concern. For many that injuries do], there would be a huge public outcry and we older adults, a hip fracture may begin a downward spiral would be told to spare no expense to fi nd a cure and to be of immobility-related morbidity, an end to independent liv- quick about it.”13 Much progress has been achieved in the ing in the community, and shortened life span. Indeed, half ensuing years, but the commitment of the public, and of the of all elders who are hospitalized for a hip fracture are un- health care profession, to injury prevention is still woefully able to return home or live independently after the injury.9 inadequate—a symptom of society’s “general tendency to Unless we are able to reduce death and injury rates among underinvest in programs designed to prevent social prob- people older than 65 years, it is estimated that by the year lems.”14 Why? Three answers come to mind: (1) injury is 2030 this group will sustain more than one third of all in- underrecognized and, as such, grossly underfunded and jury-related deaths and hospitalizations. The social impact understudied relative to other health problems of similar of this cannot be overstated. magnitude; (2) injury prevention is relatively young as a fi eld 67 TRAUMA NURSING: FROM RESUSCITATION THROUGH REHABILITATION, 4TH EDITION by Karen A. McQuillan, Mary Beth Flynn Makic & Eileen Whalen Copyright © 2009 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Ch06_067-090-X3772.indd 67 5/27/08 6:09:54 PM 68 PART I General Concepts in Trauma Nursing TABLE 6-1 The Ten Leading Causes of Death—United States, 2004 Age Groups (years) Rank <1 1-4 5-9 10-14 15-24 1 Congenital anomalies Unintentional injury Unintentional injury Unintentional injury Unintentional 5,622 1,641 1,126 1,540 injury 15,449 2 Short gestation Congenital anomalies Malignant neoplasms Malignant neoplasms Homicide 4,642 569 526 493 5,085 3 Sudden infant death Malignant neoplasms Congenital anomalies Suicide Suicide syndrome 399 205 283 4,316 2,246 4 Maternal pregnancy Homicide Homicide Homicide Malignant complications 377 122 207 neoplasms 1,715 1,709 5 Unintentional injury Heart disease Heart disease Congenital anomalies Heart disease 1,052 187 83 184 1,038 6 Placenta cord Infl uenza and Chronic low respiratory Heart disease Congenital membranes pneumonia disease 162 anomalies 1,042 119 46 483 7 Respiratory distress Septicemia Benign neoplasms Chronic low Cerebrovascular 875 84 41 respiratory disease 211 74 8 Bacterial sepsis Perinatal period Septicemia Infl uenza and pneumonia HIV 827 61 38 49 191 9 Neonatal hemorrhage Benign neoplasms Cerebrovascular Benign neoplasms Infl uenza and 616 53 34 43 pneumonia 185 10 Circulatory system Chronic low respiratory Infl uenza and Cerebrovascular Chronic low respi- disease disease pneumonia 43 ratory disease 593 48 33 179 Produced by Offi ce of Statistics and Programming, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed February 2007. Trauma-related diagnoses in bold italic. HIV, Human immunodefi ciency virus. of scientifi c inquiry and professional practice; and (3) training AN OVERVIEW OF INJURY PREVENTION in injury prevention methods is lacking. Trauma nurses know all too well how a few seconds can Although traumatic injury has been a problem throughout alter the course of a healthy young person’s life forever. the ages, injury prevention is a relatively new fi eld of scientifi c They have witnessed the effects of alcohol and other sub- inquiry. Historically, injuries (often called accidents) have stance abuse and access to lethal weapons as risk factors for been viewed as the result of human error, fate, or bad luck. injury; they recognize predictable trauma case histories; Injury prevention efforts refl ected and inadvertently sup- they know that certain days, times, and weather conditions ported this belief by encouraging people to adopt safe and are associated with increased caseload. Fortunately, many responsible behaviors or by blaming the victims for the have also witnessed the protective effects of interventions events that led to their injuries or deaths. Most attempts at such as seatbelts, helmets, and improved vehicle design. injury prevention focused on training individuals to be more Clearly, trauma nurses possess the awareness and many of careful, a preoccupation with what Leon Robertson called the attributes needed by injury preventionists and can make “[a] basic cultural theme … that suffi cient education will valuable contributions to injury prevention. The goal of this resolve almost any problem.”16 The concept that injury, like chapter, therefore, is to enable the trauma nurse to think disease, is the product of the interaction of a human host and about injury in a critical and systematic way. Traumatic an agent within the environment, and can therefore be exam- injury is approached as a health problem to be solved. A ined by epidemiologic methods, fi rst appeared in the public public health problem-solving paradigm15 and two related health literature in 1949,17 more than a century after epide- conceptual frameworks for problem diagnosis and decision miologists knew that explaining the development of epidem- making are introduced. ics as the consequence of individual behaviors was inaccurate TRAUMA NURSING: FROM RESUSCITATION THROUGH REHABILITATION, 4TH EDITION by Karen A. McQuillan, Mary Beth Flynn Makic & Eileen Whalen Copyright © 2009 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.