Surgical residents' knowledge of injury prevention principles

BACKGROUND: Injury prevention is not routinely taught in medical school or surgical residency curricula. Because of the integral role surgeons play in the diagnosis and treatment of trauma, we sought to determine the knowledg e base of injury prevention concepts of surgical residents training in a st ate's level 1 trauma centers. METHODS: A written survey was given to general surgery residents at our sta te's three level 1 trauma centers. Twenty-one questions related to injury p revention were asked in addition to demographic data. Basic concepts of inj ury prevention, statistical knowledge of injury patterns, and knowledge of intentional violence were tested. RESULTS: Sixty-two residents completed the survey. Only 9 respondents repor ted prior formal instruction in injury prevention. Overall performance was (mean +/- SD) 10.6 +/- 2.5 of 31 possible points, for a mean average score of 34% correct answers. Postgraduate year level, prior medical school instr uction in injury prevention or months of experience on a trauma service did not correlate with improved scores. Specific question performance ranged f rom 2% to 82% correct responses. Questions regarding domestic violence (60% ), risk of burns (65%), and incidence of trauma deaths (82%) were answered correctly most often, while injury prevention theory questions, such as com ponents of the Injury Prevention Triangle (5%), definition of YPLL (2%), an d annual cost attributable to injury (19%) were least often answered correc tly. CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that general surgery residents are poorly educated regarding basic concepts of injury prevention. Importantly, a majo rity of respondents (69%) felt formal instruction in injury prevention shou ld be included Surg. 2000;180:223-226, (C) 2000 by Excerpta Medica, Inc.