Transit accidents origin and violence, patient attributions
Keywords:
Origin attributions, Transit accident, Violence eventAbstract
Introduction: At present injuries produced by a transit accident or violence event represents a very serious safety problem for communities. As expected they also increase utilization of specialized health care.
Objective: To determine cultural weights and attributions of origin and evolution of symtoms in patients with a transit accident or violence event, independent of type of accident, age, sex, education, income and illegal drug usage.
Material and methods: Sixty victims of a transit accident or violence event attending a social security tertiary hospital were consecutively selected, in Monterrey, Mexico. Information was obtained through the free listing technique. Analysis consisted of frequency distributions and estimation of cultural weights (value of cognitive significance plus a combination of frequency and order of attribute mention).
Results: Individuals attributed their transit accident to carelessness and it was dependent of sex; women attributed the event more frequently to worn-out . Individuals with a violence event attributed it to alcohol and drugs and varied according to age, sex, usage of illegal drugs and income. Satisfactory evolution was the most common attribution for feeling better; women and persons with an income mentioned more frequently medical care . The most common feeling better attribution for a violent event was Thanks God my life was not lost .
Discussion and conclusions: Carelessness predominated for a transit accident origin and illegal drugs and alcohol for a violence origin. Literature also reports illegal drugs, alcohol and medicines as important factors related to accidents.
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