Patterns and Referral Burden of Injuries at a Secondary-Care Referral Hospital in Eastern Sri Lanka: A Retrospective Study

Author

Rajiya Mohamed Muyees


Abstract

 Background: Injuries are a major cause of morbidity and health-service utilization worldwide and remain the leading cause of hospital admission in Sri Lanka. Objective: To describe the pattern, sex distribution, quarterly variation, and referral burden of injuries managed at Base Hospital Muthur during 2025. Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted using aggregate data from four quarterly institutional injury returns covering January to December 2025. Quarterly totals, sex, injury category, transfers, and recorded deaths were extracted. Frequencies, proportions, male-to-female distribution, quarterly transfer proportions, and category distributions were calculated. Results: A total of 3,227 injury cases were recorded during 2025; 1,988 (61.6%) were male and 1,239 (38.4%) were female. Falls were the largest injury category (1,144; 35.5%), followed by struck/hit by person (330; 10.2%), animal bites (328; 10.2%), poisoning (304; 9.4%), transport injuries (300; 9.3%), stab/cut injuries (261; 8.1%), and struck/hit by object injuries (245; 7.6%). These seven categories accounted for 90.2% of the annual injury burden. The highest quarterly caseload was recorded in Q3 (886; 27.5%). Overall, 517 patients were transferred, representing 16.0% of recorded injury cases; the quarterly transfer proportion was highest in Q2 (24.9%). Two deaths were recorded in the quarterly returns. Conclusion: Injuries created a substantial service burden at this secondary-care referral hospital, with falls contributing more than one-third of recorded cases. Male predominance was evident overall, while poisoning showed a female predominance. The findings support locally targeted fall prevention, violence and cut-injury prevention, animal-bite prevention, poisoning prevention, and strengthening of referral pathways and trauma-care capacity.



Keywords

injuries; falls; referral; trauma; secondary care; Sri Lanka



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References


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