Abstract

Background and Goal: Open fractures are at risk of infection with Clostridium tetani and severe traumatic infections. Tetabulin injection is strongly recommended for the patients with an open fracture and severe wounds. The goal of this study is to assess the consistency of tetabulin injection to the patients with an open fracture referred to the Khatamolanbia hospital in Zahedan in 2017 with the national guidelines.

Materials and Methods: This study is a cross-sectional descriptive study. 300 patients with an open fracture referred to the ER of the Khatamolanbia Hospital in Zahedan in 2017 were selected as the sample. Their fracture type and severity were assessed. The data were classified in the tables and statistically analyzed using Chi-square, pared t-test, Pearson correlation, and regression in SPSS 26.

Findings: Among 300 patients, 275 patients (91.7%) were male and 25 patients (8.3%) were female. The most frequent age range was 20 to 30 years old (31.7%), and the least frequent ones were 5 to 10 years old (10%) and more than 50 years old (11.6%). The results showed that gender has no significant effect on the predictability of the need of tetabulin injection for the patients with open fractures (P=0.780). However, age has a significant positive effect on the predictability of the need of tetabulin injection for the patients with open fractures; as the age increases, the need for tetabulin injection also increases, and it must be injected in the 50 years and older patients (P=0.05).

Conclusion: The results showed that age was effective on the decrease of the serum level of anti-tetanus antibody, however, gender had no significant effect on it. Therefore, it is concluded that tetabulin injection for open fractures is consistent with the national guideline.

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