Frequency of Recidivism in Patients With Orthopedic Trauma

The goals of this study were to determine the frequency of trauma recidivism and to identify risk factors. The authors hypothesized that substance abuse and mental illness would be associated with recidivism. They performed a retrospective review of 879 patients who were treated surgically for high-energy fractures over a period of 4 years. Recidivism was defined as presentation to the trauma center for a new, unrelated injury. A recurrent recidivist was a repeat patient who returned for more than 1 additional injury. The study identified 164 (18.7%) patients who returned with a new injury. Mean age of recidivists was 37.1 years vs 40.7 years for nonrecidivists (P=.025). Of the recidivists, 80% were male, and this group was more likely to be unmarried (76.2% vs 67.2%, P=.044) and unemployed (40.4% vs 19.6%, P<.0001). Recidivists were also more likely to be uninsured (33.5% vs 17.8%, P<.0001) or to have Medicaid coverage (33.5% vs 23.2%, P<.0001). Recidivists were more likely to have used alcohol (47.2% vs 32.0%, P=.0007) or to be intoxicated (32.4% vs 21.2%, P=.005) and to use tobacco (66.2% vs 50.2%, P=.0003) or recreational drugs (59.1% vs 43.2%, P=.0004) at baseline. The rate of documented mental illness was also higher in repeat patients than in nonrepeat patients (28.1% vs 20.0%, P=.03). These findings showed that recidivism is common, occurring overall in 18.7% of the study sample within a mean of 2.9 years. Factors associated with recidivism included age younger than 40 years, unmarried status, substance use, unemployment, and lack of insurance coverage. The greatest independent risk factors for recidivism were Medicaid insurance or no insurance and a history of a gunshot wound or assault.