Epidemiologic data of the patients with spinal cord injury: seven years' experience of a single center.

BACKGROUND We aimed to present the demographic and epidemiologic data on spinal cord injury (SCI) patients who were rehabilitated at our hospital, to identify high-risk groups and etiological factors, and to evaluate the factors that affect the duration of hospitalization (DOH). METHODS Data on 905 SCI patients treated on an inpatient basis between December 2000 and June 2007 at our hospital were retrospectively evaluated. Patient age, sex, etiology of injury, DOH, neurologic level, and functional grouping were analyzed. Additionally, the effects of age and sex on DOH were evaluated. RESULTS In total, 661 (73%) of the patients were male and 244 (27%) were female. The mean age of the patients was 33.4±15.0 years; 51.27% of the patients were 20-33 years of age. The mean DOH was 73.6±49.8 days. In all, 304 (33.5%) of the patients were tetraplegic and 601 (66.5%) were paraplegic. Motor vehicle collisions were the most common cause of injury (n=318, 35.1%), followed by falls from an elevated height (n=170, 18.8%). DOH was significantly higher among the tetraplegia American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) A-B patients than among the other patients (p<0.01). CONCLUSION. It is clear that most of the SCIs we observed were preventable. Comprehensive identification of the epidemiologic, demographic and pathologic features of SCIs contributes to identifying high-risk groups, thereby making it possible to pay personal and communal attention to precautions for SCIs.