Mahnaz Yadollahi - Trauma Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
Ali Kashkooe - Trauma Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

Purpose: Trauma is a major health concern. Hospital length of stay (LOS) has been targeted as an important metric to assess trauma care. This study aims to evaluate risk factors that affect LOS among trauma patients in a trauma center in southwestern Iran.Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted on patients admitted to Rajaee Trauma Center, Shiraz, Iran between January 1, 2018 and December 30, 2018. The inclusion criteria of the study were age above 15 years and having traffic accident injuries. The exclusion criteria were pre-existing diseases including cardiovascular, cerebral, renal, and pulmonary diseases prior to this study, dead upon arrival, staying in the hospital for less than 6 hours, and death within 48 hours of admission. The risk variables analyzed for prolonged LOS were age, gender, mechanism of injury, infection during hospital stay, type of injury, injury severity score, surgery during hospitalization, and survival. Poisson regression was performed to evaluate the partial effects of each covariate on trauma hospitalization Results: This study was conducted on 14054 patients with the mean age of (33.89±15.78) years. Additionally, 74.35% of the patients were male, with male to female ratio of 2.90. The result of Poisson regression indicated that male patients, higher age, combination of thoracic injuries, onset of infected sites, and patients who were under surgical procedurewere more susceptible to stay in hospital. Considering the site of injury, patients with face injuries followed by those with thorax injuries had the highest means of LOS (3.74 and 3.36 days, respectively). Simultaneous existence of surgical intervention and infection in apatient had the highest impact on prolonged LOS. Conclusion: This study identified that age, gender, mechanism of injury, infection, type ofinjury, survival, and ISS could lead to prolongation of LOS, but it can be reduced by eliminating its modifiable risk factors.

Length of hospital stay, Trauma, Risk factors