Patient influx and trauma types in a front-line hospital and a secondary referral hospital after the Wenchuan earthquake: a retrospectively comparative study

Purpose: To better understand the differences of patient influx and types of trauma between front-line and referral hospitals after the Wenchuan earthquake, so as to improve the efficiency of injury management.

Methods: A retrospective and comparative study was performed in Deyang People's Hospital (a front-line hospital) and West China Hospital (a secondary referral hospital).

Results: A total of 1,106 patients were admitted to the front-line hospital, and 1,775 to the secondary referral hospital. The patient flow peaked within 24 h after the quake, and decreased dramatically thereafter in the front-line hospital, while it peaked 2 days after the disaster in the referral one. Extremities were the most frequent location of all identified injuries (48.4% in the front-line hospital and 49.5% in the second-line hospital). Head and trunk injuries were more frequent in the front-line hospital than the referral hospital. Most of the deaths in the front-line hospital occurred within 24 h (6/8), whilst most in the referral hospital died more than 7 days (29/30) after the earthquake. While the total mortality in the front-line hospital was less than that in the referral hospital (0.7 vs 1.7%), the critical mortality in the former was higher (22.8 vs 9.4%).

Conclusions: There were dramatically different features in terms of quake-related patient influx and types of injury between the epicenter and less-affected hospitals.