Traumas faciais: um estudo epidemiológico da violência por agressão física

Abstract

The present study had the aim to determine the occurrence of facial trauma and the factors associated among victims of violence by physical aggression referred to the Forensic Medicine and Dentistry Center of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brasil. We developed a cross-sectional and observational study and we performed the census of the medical and dental records of non-fatal victims referred to the corpus delicti exam, available on the center by a four-year period (2008 2011). The data were collected using a form containing information available about the medical and dental records. Three members of the data collection team underwent a training and calibration exercise. We analyzed 7,132 medical and dental records over the period considered. Of these, 3,057 (42.8%) were related to facial trauma. The traumas were more frequent among young people between 20 to 29 years (36.8%), women (1.15:1), singles (56%) and people up to eight years of study (45.1%). The physical aggression were comitted mainly by men (3:1), by people whose victims knows (42.1%) and without the use of weapon (76.5%). The occurrences happened mostly in the community (65.7%), at times ranging from 18:00 p.m. to 05:59 a.m. (47.4%). The main type of facial trauma befell the soft tissue (95%) from the orbits (18.2%). The multivariate analysis revealed that the facial traumas were associated with the victims that lived on the metropolitan area (p = 0,008) and that knows the perpetrator (p = 0,022). The facial trauma also was associated with no-armed aggression (p < 0,001) and aggression that happened on the community (p = 0,017), mainly at the night (p = 0,002) of weekends (p = 0,015). Despite the complexity of violence occurrence on different society e the difficulty in determining the causes that lead to violence by physical aggression, the present study provided epidemiological informations about the occurrence of violence and determined some factors that probably are related with facial trauma resulting from violence cases.