KMC

When mass casualty incidents occur, the health care system must deal with a surge of patients. Knowledge of mass casualty incident epidemiology and injury types are needed for preparedness for these kinds of events.

In low- and middle income countries trauma registeries and data collection on incidents and need of care are often lacking, and it is difficult to connect trauma patients with specific incidents since no prehospital or systematic trauma data collection exists. In this study researchers have developed and used a novel method for mapping mass casualty incidents, a systematic media review. Data in the form of non-scientific publications on mass casualty incidents in Rwanda were collected from the database NexisUni for the period January 2010 to September 2021. Information on geographical distribution of events, type of event, injuries and deaths were extracted from the collected articles. In cases and areas where systematic data collection and registration of trauma patients is lacking, a media review functions as a method for collecting data valuable for health care preparedness.

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Publication:

Lotta Velin, Mbonyintwari Donatien, Andreas Wladis, Menelas Nkeshimana, Robert Riviello, Jean-Marie Uwitonze, Jean-Claude Byiringiro, Faustin Ntirenganya, Laura Pompermaier
Systematic media review: A novel method to assess mass-trauma epidemiology in absence of databases – A pilot-study in Rwanda
PLoS ONE Published October 13.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258446

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