This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (10)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Public Health  • Surgical Interventions, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic

Gail T. Tominaga, MD; George Garcia, MD; Alex Dzierba, RN, MSN; Jan Wong, MD

Arch Surg. 2004;139:844-847.

Hypothesis  Methamphetamine use affects length of hospital stay in the minimally injured patient.

Design  Case series.

Setting  The only tertiary trauma center serving Hawaii.

Patients  Trauma patients examined during a 12-month period with an Injury Severity Score of 1 to 5 and an age of 18 to 55 years undergoing urine toxicology screen for suspected suicide attempt or altered sensorium.

Main Outcome Measures  Presence or absence of amphetamine or methamphetamine on urine toxicology screen, intention of injury, hospital admission rate, length of stay, and hospital charges.

Results  During the study period, 1650 trauma patients were examined, with 544 meeting study criteria. Urine toxicology screens were performed in 212 patients, with 57 positive and 155 negative for amphetamine or methamphetamine. There was no difference in sex (77% vs 73% male; P = .53), Injury Severity Score (3.2 for both groups), or total number of computed tomographic scans performed (mean ± SEM, 3.0 ± 0.3 vs 4.0 ± 0.3; P = .07). Patients in the positive group were more likely to have intentional self-inflicted injury or intentional assaults than patients in the negative group (37% vs 22%; P = .04). The positive group was older than the negative group (33.6 ± 1.3 vs 29.9 ± 0.8 years; P = .02), had a significantly longer hospital stay (2.7 ± 0.4 vs 1.7 ± 0.1 days; P = .003), had significantly higher hospital charges ($15 617 ± $1866 vs $11 600 ± $648; P = .01), and was more likely admitted to the hospital (91% vs 70%; P = .001) despite the low Injury Severity Score.

Conclusion  Methamphetamine use results in trauma center resource utilization out of proportion to injury severity.

From the Departments of Surgery, The Queen's Medical Center (Dr Tominaga and Mr Dzierba), Tripler Army Medical Center, (Dr Garcia), and John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, (Drs Tominaga and Wong), Honolulu.

RELATED ARTICLE

This Month in Archives of Surgery
Arch Surg. 2004;139(8):813.
FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Testing for Substance Use in Trauma Patients: Are We Doing Enough?
London and Battistella
Arch Surg 2007;142:633-638.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Contingency Management for the Treatment of Methamphetamine Use Disorders
Roll et al.
Am. J. Psychiatry 2006;163:1993-1999.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT