Is there a temporal variation in admission and management of Road Traffic Accident related Maxillofacial trauma?

Our primary objective is to present the diurnal, day of the week, monthly and seasonal variation of RTA related maxillofacial fracture admission in our unit and analyse the association if any, between the temporal characteristics of facial fracture admissions as primary predictors, with the primary outcomes of length of stay, admission to operation, the operation to discharge and operative time, and to investigate if the association is predictive. As a secondary objective, we analysed the association if any, between the age of the patient, gender and fracture pattern with the primary outcomes. The data on the patient’s duration of hospital stay, operative time, admission time, date of admission, date of operation and date of discharge was obtained from the electronic medical record system of the hospital. All patient identifying information was removed from the final master chart before statistical analysis. Our hypothesis is that there is a temporal variation in maxillofacial trauma admissions and management against the null hypothesis of absence of any variation.

本研究首要目标为：呈现本科室收治的道路交通事故（Road Traffic Accident, RTA）相关性颌面骨折患者的昼夜、周内、月度及季节性分布特征，分析以该类骨折收治的时间特征作为主要预测因子时，其与住院时长、入院至手术间隔、手术至出院间隔及手术时长这几项主要结局指标间是否存在关联，并探究该关联是否具备预测价值。次要研究目标为分析患者年龄、性别与骨折类型同上述主要结局指标间是否存在关联。患者住院时长、手术时长、入院时间、入院日期、手术日期及出院日期相关数据均提取自本院电子病历系统（electronic medical record system）。统计学分析开展前，已从最终汇总数据表中移除所有可识别患者身份的信息。本研究的研究假设为颌面创伤患者的收治及诊疗环节存在时间节律差异，与之对立的零假设为不存在此类差异。