Assessment of Clinical Characteristics of Patients with Penetrating Abdominal Trauma

Background: One type of trauma is penetrating abdominal trauma (PAT). For this reason, given the importance of PAT and the management of these patients, this study aimed to determine the clinical characteristics of patients with PAT admitted to the ICU. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted by reviewing and studying the medical records of patients. Researchers reviewed the records of patients who were hospitalized in the ICU with a diagnosis of PAT and extracted the relevant information. Inclusion criteria included being between the ages of 10 and 60, having a diagnosis of PAT, and being hospitalized in the ICU. Patients whose records were incomplete for any reason were excluded from the study. The research checklist included relevant information. In this study, ethical principles in research were observed in the study of the doctors' clinical records. Additionally, after extracting the data into SPSS version 16 software, data analysis was performed. Results: Results showed 86.2% of the patients were male and 13.8% were female. Additionally, most of the patients were in the age range between 31-40 years, with 37.9%. The majority had a high school diploma (70.7%) and multiple traumas with 60.3%. The mean (SD) of mortality in the first 24 h was 1.82 (0.38), hospital mortality was 1.74 (0.44), and ICU length of stay (day) was 6.48 (4.2). Additionally, the results showed that most of the radiograph findings included air under the diaphragm at a rate of 6.9%, and the highest rate of complications observed in patients included surgical site infection at a rate of 24.13%. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that infection is one of the important complications of hospitalization of patients with PAT in the ICU. Therefore, it is essential to carry out the necessary interventions in this area.