• African health sciences · Mar 2018

    Human bite as a weapon of assault.

    • Samuel Ohayi Robsam, Emeka Udeh Ihechi, and William Odesanmi Olufemi.
    • Histopathology ESUT College of Medicine Park lane, Enugu, Enugu 10003 Nigeria.
    • Afr Health Sci. 2018 Mar 1; 18 (1): 79-89.

    BackgroundHuman bite is a growing public health concern. It may be seen in both victims and aggressors following assault. Effects of human bite are both social and medical.ObjectivesThis study aims to determine the prevalence and characteristics of assault-related human bite injuries in Enugu, Nigeria.MethodsIn this prospective study, an objective structured questionnaire was administered to assault victims attending the Forensic unit of ESUT Teaching Hospital between November 2013 and October 2014. Obtained data was analyzed.ResultsOut of 219 patients presenting with clinical injuries, 29 (13.2%) sustained human bite wounds. Average age was 32.2±11.30 years and 34.3±12.4 years for victims and biters respectively. Females were more involved than males. Severe injuries resulted more in bites involving females than males. Contusion (47.6%) and laceration (31.0%) were the commonest. Upper limbs were mostly affected (44.7%) followed by the face (29.0%). Romance-related injuries affected breasts and thighs. Most incidents (62.1%) occurred within home/living quarters. Most biters were known to their victims.ConclusionHuman bite is a common outcome of assault and so should be anticipated in cases of assault. Patterns of location of bites seem related to nature of crime.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…