The burden of war-injury in the Palestinian health care sector in Gaza Strip

Abstract

BackgroundWar-related injury is a major public health concern, and a leading cause of mortality, morbidity, and disability globally, particularly in low and middle-income countries such as Palestine. Little is known about the burden of war-related injury in the Palestinian context. The objective of this study was to characterize the incidence and pattern of injuries, associated with war in Gaza Strip, from July 8 to August 26, 2014.MethodsThis was a descriptive study based on an injury registry at hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip. A total of 420 victims records from 2014 Gaza war injuries were randomly selected, proportionate to the size of the study population estimated across five Gaza governorates. Simple descriptive statistics were calculated to explore the frequency and percentage distribution of study variables and injury data. A chi-square test (X2) was used. The significance level was derived at p < 0.05. The data were analyzed by IBM SPSS software, version 23.ResultsMales (75.5%) have experienced more war-related injuries than females (24.5%), constituting a male: female ratio of 3.1:1. Almost half (49.5%) of the injured victims were of the age group 20–39, followed by children and adolescents (< 20 years), accounting for 31.4%. More than half of victims were single (53.6%), 44.3% were married and the rest were widowed or divorced. The overall number of injuries was 6.4 per 1000 population, though it varied among regions. North Gaza reported the highest number of injuries (9.0) and Rafah the lowest (4.7) per 1000 population. Blast and explosion were found to be the most common causes of war injuries (72.9%). The highest proportion of injuries were reported in the upper body. Multiple body shrapnel wounds and burns (39.3%) were most frequent. Other types of injuries were multiple organ injury (24.3%), fractures (13.6%), internal organ injury and bleeding (9.8%), amputation (4.5%), abrasions/lacerations and contusions (4.8%), vision or hearing loss or both (1.9%) and respiratory problems (1.9%). The highest percentage of injuries were classified as mild (46.9%), and the rest ranged from moderate-to-severe. Almost 26% of individuals had sustained disability, and most of them had physical/motor impairment.ConclusionWar-related injuries constitute a major problem to public health discipline and clinical medicine as well. A better surveillance system using ICD codes, and development of a comprehensive electronic data network are necessary to make future research easier and more timely.

Better be prepared: the spectrum of neuropsychiatric impairment among Libyan war victims transferred to Germany for trauma rehabilitation

“…War injuries often induce significant damage to the human body, which frequently leads to polytrauma [2] as shown in our data. Bone injuries have been shown to have a high prevalence [26], resulting in amputations in up to 4.5% of patients within the first weeks after injury [11,26,28] with a high prevalence of phantom limb pain of 41-85% [1,33]. Although we found a higher amputation rate in our patients, possibly due to preselection of patients, our findings confirm the importance of screening for complications of amputations even weeks after the surgery.…”

Trends and patterns of deaths, injuries and intentional disabilities within the Libyan armed conflict: 2012-2017

“…Similar results were also reported on the Iraqi conflict, in which 51. % of injured people were males aged 20–39 (29.6%) and 33.3% aged 15–19 years [12,30].…”

Correction to: The burden of war-injury in the Palestinian health care sector in Gaza Strip

“…In the original publication of this article [ 1 ] the background section contained an inaccurate mention of the amount of civilian deaths in the 2014 Gaza war. In this correction article the incorrect and correct information are published for clarification.…”