Temporal trend of morbidity due to external causes: Subsidies to permanent education actions in emergency services in the state of Bahia, Brazil

Since the 80’s a high number of deaths due to violent causes has called attention of researchers to this issue, in order to understand its causes and, as a result, to be able to avoid it. However, there are just a few studies about morbidity due to external causes that, even though not necessarily  represent a fatal event,  it  has been responsible for a great number of hospital admissions generating high costs to Unified Health System (SUS) in Brazil and specially, in Bahia. These aggressions cause not only physical injuries to the victims but,  psychological ones, not always measurable , which demand services and qualified professional work  able to offer a high quality care to these patients , in the health care units. This study focuses on a time series analysis of hospital admissions due to external causes in the state of Bahia, Brazil and its capital, data from the main health information systems in Brazil. According to the results, there’s an increase in the number of admissions by these causes. There were 189121 cases in 1998, whereas in 2007, 243263 occurred. In 1998, the most frequent types of external causes were accidental falls( 41,47%) , followed by traffic accidents( 15,08%) and physical aggression( 10,42%). No significant differences were found in subsequent years. The most frequent age group is the 5-29 years one, mostly males, in a male: female ratio of 3:1.In conclusion, there’s a need of implementation, in the state, of a policy to emergency services including permanent education actions for health workers, in order to qualify them to identify non-reported violence cases, prevent sequelae and inform the victims about support services, according to the needs.