Intensive Care Nursing/Trauma/Trauma

The impact of trauma
Trauma is considered a disease affecting all ages of the population. Each year in the United States, trauma accounts for 41 million emergency department visits and 2.3 million hospital admissions (CDC, 2014). The economic burden of trauma accounts for $585 billion a year, including both health care costs and lost productivity (CDC, 2014). According to US data, trauma ranks as the number one cause of death for age group 1-46, or 47% of all deaths in this age range (Mattox et al, 2013).

"Injuries continue to kill 5 million people each year. Road traffic injuries claimed nearly 3500 lives each day in 2012 – more than 600 more than in the year 2000 – making it among the 10 leading causes in 2012" (cited World Health Organisation, 2015). 

"In England, trauma is the leading cause of death across all age groups, with over 16,000 deaths per year" (cited Kanakaris & Giannoudis, 2011).

Trauma impacts significantly on the victims, families and on the wider community. Not only from the humanistic perspective of the effects of injury and prolonged rehabilitation, but also from an economic perspective and loss of productivity costs from death and disability are much more difficult to estimate. The human cost and impact of trauma is profound when you consider the potential effect of grief and loss experienced by victims families of fatal trauma or, in the case of disability, the personal cost of ongoing care requirements, loss of independence and restriction on lifestyle. Measurements such as 'Life Years Lost' in trauma injury, are higher than cancer and heart disease.

Trauma and injury has many variants from degree of severity, rates of incidence, prevalence and mortality. Age, gender, socioeconomic status, drugs and alcohol can all influence the occurrence of trauma.