Causes and Types of Traumatic Amputation in Patients Referring Ardabil's Fatemi Educational Hospital from 2005 through 2006

Injuries account for 16% of global burden of diseases and causes a great deal of mortality and morbidity. Today, amputation is one of the biggest challenges facing us and may accompany serious functional, psychosocial and personality disorders in communities. Therefore, we decided to assess the causes and types of traumatic amputation in patients referring Ardabil's Fatemi Educational Hospital from 2005 through 2006. The present study was descriptively & analytically retrospective one in which the data were collected using a questionnaire. Our study population included 218 cases referring Ardabil's Fatima educational Hospital for amputation from the beginning of 2005 through the end of 2006. In this study, the mean age of injured cases is 28.9±19.1 and men were also injured three times more than women. Most of the cases attended in summer between 8:00 Am -8:00 Pm. The number of cases among city dwellers and residents of rural areas were almost equal and most of the cases (39.6%) were illiterate. Most of the cases were injured outdoors especially in their workplace. The most commonly seen cause of amputation was tools used in farming and husbandry especially mower. Most of the amputations (50.5%) were total and unintentional (99.5%). Most of the injuries were seen in upper extremities (94.5%), hands and especially fingers (97%) Based on the obtained results, male workers are at a higher risk. Most of the injuries occurred during the work hours and amputation caused by tools used in farming and husbandry has a high prevalence. This is probably due to the unsafe and old structure of these tools.