Types of injuries and treatment of pedestrians admitted to a referral hospital in Nairobi City, Kenya

Abstract

The commonly analyzed burden of road traffic injuries is at national or urban level, using road traffic fatalities per 100,000 population or 100,000 vehicles (for instance, see Chapter 4 in this book). While this scale of analysis is relevant for revealing trends and magnitude at a national level, it does not reveal the burden on specific sectors or households. The ideal of preventing road traffic collisions affecting pedestrians from occurring is not always achieved in real life. As a result of a crash, pedestrians suffer different types of injuries, and require post-crash care and rehabilitation. One of the settings that we can use to understand the burden of road traffic collisions is post-crash care. Post-crash response consists of prehospital, hospital and rehabilitation components (Mock et al., 1999; Van Rooyen et al., 1999; Mock et al., 2003; Peden et al., 2004; World Health Organization, 2013). This chapter contributes to an understanding of the burden of pedestrian road traffic injuries on post-crash response or care by focusing on the hospital phase for injured pedestrians. The chapter examines demographic characteristics, types of injuries and length of hospital stay of pedestrians who were admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital, a referral hospital in Nairobi.