Factors affecting mortality of hospitalized facial trauma patients in Al-Ain City, United Arab Emirates

Background Facial injuries affect one-third of severely injured patients. These injuries have devastating long-term negative impacts on quality of life. We aimed to study the epidemiology of facial injuries and factors affecting the mortality of hospitalized facial trauma patients in Al-Ain City, United Arab Emirates. Methodology This is a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from Al-Ain Hospital Trauma Registry. All patients with facial injury who were hospitalized for more than 24 hours or who died after arrival at the hospital during the period from January 2014 to December 2017 were studied. Two sample data analysis was used to compare patients who died and those who survived. Significant factors were then entered into a backward logistic regression model to define factors affecting mortality. Results 408 patients having a mean age of 31.9 years were studied, 87.3% were males. The main mechanisms of injury were road traffic collisions (52.2%) and fall from height (11.3%). 289 (70.8%) patients had associated injuries which were mainly in the head and chest. The backward logistic regression model showed that the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) was the only factor that predicted mortality, p<0.0001 with the best cut-off point of 7.5, having a sensitivity of 0.972 and a specificity of 0.8. The ROC had an area under the curve of 0.924. Conclusion The majority of facial injury patients in our setting are young males who were involved in road traffic collisions or falls from height. The most important factor predicting the mortality of these patients was the low GCS. Those having a GCS of 8 and more had a better chance of survival. This information is very important when counseling patients or their relatives for facial surgery.

Automated summary

This study retrospectively analyzed epidemiological data of 408 hospitalized facial injury patients in Al-Ain City, United Arab Emirates, and investigated factors affecting mortality. The majority of patients were young males, and the main causes of injury were road traffic collisions and falls from height. The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) was identified as the only factor predicting mortality, with patients having a low GCS being more likely to die.