J. Sayfan et Y. Berlin, PREVIOUS TRAUMA AS A RISK FACTOR FOR RECURRENT TRAUMA IN RURAL NORTHERN ISRAEL, The journal of trauma, injury, infection, and critical care, 43(1), 1997, pp. 123-125
Background: Recently, a few urban trauma centers reported on repetitiv
eness of injury in some population groups. The aim of this study is to
evaluate the concept of ''trauma recidivism'' by measurement of the a
ssociation of previous trauma events with acute trauma in a rural regi
on of northern Israel with a specific sociocultural population mixture
, low drug and alcohol abuse, and low levels of criminal activity. Met
hods: A case-control study was conducted comparing 100 consecutive tra
uma cases with selected controls, The main predictor variable evaluate
d in this study was a history of previous significant traumatic events
. Cases were defined as patients > 14 years of age hospitalized for ac
ute trauma, Controls were selected from hospitalized patients with non
traumatic conditions, Logistic regression analysis was performed to ad
just for potential sociodemographic confounding factors. Results: The
trauma group was significantly younger (p < 0.001) and predominantly m
ale (p < 0.03), The incidence of ''recurrent tramna'' was highly signi
ficant in this group (p < 0.00001), and ''injury-free intervals'' were
significantly shorter (p < 0.002), A history of previous significant
traumatic events was a strong predictor for recurrent trauma (adjusted
odds ratio, 10.36; 95% confidence interval, 3.10-34.58). Injury types
and patterns differed in subgroups, although the demographic structur
e of the trauma recidivists group conformed to that of the general pop
ulation. Conclusions: In this limited population study from rural nort
hern Israel, a previous history of significant trauma is associated wi
th recurrent trauma, Sociodemographic and cultural factors do not appe
ar to be strong predictors for recurrent trauma, Further research inve
stigating trauma recidivism is needed to clarify these relationships.