Together with researchers from several Swedish universities, Amir Rostami has in a unique study for the first time studied patients admitted to Sweden’s trauma units with very severe injuries. They used data from the national trauma registry Swetrau, which includes all patients who have experienced a traumatic event and where a trauma alarm was triggered at the hospital.
“This study builds on a collaboration with researchers from other disciplines and universities and is in line with our strategic research work. As we in this study aim to include other aspects of violence, such as its consequences for the health care system, our data will be analysed further.”
In 2019, Sweden had 50 hospitals with trauma capacity (access to emergency surgery, anaesthesia, and X-ray), 92% of which reported to Swetrau.
Due to changes in registration during the years studied, the researchers chose to look at two time periods, 2013-2015 and 2016-2018, and analyse the development of gunshot and knife injuries. There were 145 knife injuries in the first period and 184 in the second, while gunshot injuries went up from 92 to 141, an increase of over 50 percent.
An escalation that risks fuelling the spiral of revenge
Amir Rostami believes that is very valuable that researchers from different disciplines and universities work together in this way to understand this complex field.