European journal of emergency medicine : official journal of the European Society for Emergency Medicine
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During the period 1970-1993, 245,251 visits were recorded in the trauma registry of the University Hospital Groningen, The Netherlands. An analysis of injury antecedents revealed five principal causes (ICD-CM): accidental falls (28%), sports and unspecified accident (26%), traffic (19%), cutting and piercing instruments (10%) and violence (4%). The trend analysis across the 24 year period showed that the incidence of injuries due to traffic and accidental falls decreased, while the rate of injuries due to assault increased 2-fold. ⋯ Some discrepancies could be discerned. For example, in traffic injury, most of the victims (66%) concerned were pedestrians and bicyclists and firearms comprised only 1.2% of injuries due to assault. The usefulness of the registry in current community trauma care programmes and the broader perspective of trauma registration in The Netherlands is discussed.