• Paa-Kwesi Blankson, Joachim K A Amoako, Kwaku Asah-Opoku, Francis Odei-Ansong, and Margaret Y Lartey.
• Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra, Ghana.
• BMC Emerg Med. 2019 Jul 20; 19 (1): 39.

BackgroundInjuries directly lead to 5 million deaths every year, accounting for 9% of all deaths worldwide. While knowledge of the pattern of injuries is essential to plan health interventions to reduce the incidence of injuries, these are not thoroughly described in Ghana. The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiology of injuries seen at the Accident centre of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana's main referral hospital.MethodA retrospective review of two-year records of all patients who attended the Accident centre of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital from January 2016 to December 2017 was done. Data on the cause of injuries was the main focus of this review.ResultsA total of 17,860 patients' records were included in the study. There were 12,116 (67.8%) males and 5,744 (32.2%) females. The ages of the patients seen during the period ranged from three (3) days to 101 years. The overall mean age was 27.9 (±18.2). Majority of the injuries resulted from road traffic accidents and falls, accounting for 39.1 and 19.7% respectively.ConclusionRoad Traffic accidents (RTA), especially motorcycle related, are a significant cause of injuries in Ghana. Future studies should focus on interventions that can reduce the incidence of RTA's to reduce the number of injuries that present to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

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