José Luís Guedes dos Santos

Acidentes e violências: caracterização dos atendimentos no pronto-socorro de um hospital universitário

Abstract This article, of an exploratory-descriptive character,aims to characterize the medical care provided in ca-ses of accidents and violence in the emergency roomof a university hospital, located in the interior of thestate of Rio Grande do Sul (RS). The data were obtai-ned from the registers of a monitoring system called“Observatorio de Acidentes e Violencia” (Observatoryof Accidents and Violence), which exists in the ur-gency and emergency services in RS and acts as asentry of these injuries. The results showed thatyoung adults who are non-workers and have low scho-oling are the main victims of accidents and violence.The most frequent types of occurrence were domesticaccidents and traffic accidents, generating as themost constant injuries wounds in the head and femurfractures. With regard to the sex, although for sometypes of accidents and violence the predominancevaried between them, the set of data showed greatermasculine vulnerability, especially in cases of inter-personal violence. Thus, the consequences of accidentsand violence for the health system and the societypoint to the need of improving the information syste-ms of morbimortality caused by external causes, inorder to subsidize public prevention policies and im-prove the care provided for the victims.Keywords: Accident; Violence; Morbidity; Prevention;Control; Emergency Medical Services.