Hospitalizations for Injury and
Poisoning in the United States: 1991
Advance Data 252. Using
information from the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), this report describes the
characteristics of patients hospitalized due to an injury or poisoning. Data are collected
from short-stay, non-Federal inpatient records; and persons treated in hospital emergency
rooms, outpatient departments, or ambulatory care clinics who are not admitted as
inpatients are not included in this report. Discharges with a first-listed injury or
poisoning diagnosis are the focus of this report (ICD 9 CM codes 800-999).
Data Highlights:
The overall hospitalization
rate for injury and poisoning diagnoses was 110.5 per 10,000 population, but it ranged
from 51.9 per 10,000 for children under 15 to 279.6 per 10,000 for persons 65 years of age
or older.
The two most common injury and
poisoning diagnoses were fractures (37 percent) and miscellaneous complications of
surgical and medical care (21 percent). Over one-half of the miscellaneous complications
involved an internal prosthetic device, implant, or graft, or were postoperative
infections.
More than one-half of the persons 65
years of age and over with injury and poisoning diagnoses had fractures with most of these
being hip fractures.
The average length of stay for
injury and poisoning patients ranged from 3.2 days for poisoning patients to 12.3 days for
burn patients.