Prevalence and Risk Factors of Spinal Trauma and Spinal Cord Injury in a Trauma Center in Shiraz, Iran

Spinal trauma is a devastating event which could disturb a person’s life. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and risk factors of spinal trauma in Rajaee trauma center, Shiraz, Iran. Data for this cross-sectional study were gathered from October 2009 to August 2015. The study was conducted through data extraction from the classified data of trauma patients admitted to Rajaei hospital. After performing some inclusion and exclusion criteria, 4630 cases were analyzed. The variables analyzed as the risk factors of spinal trauma included sex, age, cord injury, mechanism of injury, and injury severity score. The prevalence of spinal trauma among traumatic patients was 7%; also, 3.7% of those with spinal trauma suffered cord injury. The mean age of the spinal traumatic patients was 38.2 ± 17.8, and male-to-female ratio was 2.394. Car accident, motorbike accident, and fall were the main causes of spinal trauma in this study. The lumbar region was the most common injured site in our study. Old age, cord injury, suicide, and car accident were the main risk factors of mortality among spinal traumatic patients. Risk factors of spinal trauma among traumatic patients were female gender, old age, and fall. The risk factors of cord injury in spinal traumatic patients were male gender, old age, and suicide. It was found that spinal trauma, spinal cord injury (SCI), and mortality among spinal traumatic patients in Iran depended on some risk factors, which should be reduced through eliminating such risk factors. Fall was the most prominent factor of the occurrence of spinal trauma. The most important factors of mortality in spinal traumatic patients were suicide and cord injury. Finally, suicide played the most important role in occurrence of SCI.