Epidemiology of Post-Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury in a Tertiary Hospital

Abstract

Objective: to outline the profile of risk groups for spinal cord injury (SCI) at the Hospital de Clinicas de Campinas by an epidemiological survey of 41 patients with SCI. Methods: Data from patients with SCI were collected and analyzed: demographic data, level of neurological injury, visual analogue scale (VAS), and the current American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) impairment scale (AIS), using questionnaires, medical records, and imaging tests. Fisher’s exact test was used to assess the relationship between categorical variables, Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used for numerical variables, and the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to analyze the relationship between categorical and numerical variables, with significance level of 5%. Results: There was a prevalence of 82.9% of men, a mean age of 26.5 years, and traffic accidents as the cause of SCI in 56.1% of cases. Conclusion: Results suggest the importance of SCI prevention campaigns directed at this population. Level of Evidence II, Retrospective Study.