Epidemiology of Fracture Cases Referred for Physical Therapy in Two Lower-Middle-Income Countries

The disease burden and economic costs of managing fractures are significant to individual families and global health systems. It has been hypothesized that the etiology and types of fractures vary within subregions of the world and even within the same country, depending on the prevailing socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental factors. The differences affect prevention and treatment strategies. Several studies have investigated the causes, incidences, and patterns of fractures treated in the emergency rooms of significant trauma and tertiary hospitals in low- and middle-income countries. However, to our knowledge no study has examined the type and causes of the fracture cases referred to the physical therapy department. This information is clinically significant because physical therapists play a critical role in managing fractures and need to define priorities and appropriate resources, based on the fracture patterns, to identify the skilled workforce to treat fractures of varying severities and complexities. This chapter examines the types and causes of fracture cases referred for physical therapy at major University Teaching Hospitals in Nigeria and Ghana, while exploring age, gender, and regional differences. We retrospectively reviewed the patient’s medical records at the Physical Therapy Departments of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH), and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Accra, to determine the number of fracture cases referred for Physical Therapy between March 2024 and December 2018. In addition, we obtained the diagnosis and cause of the fractures, the patient’s age, gender, and occupation, and the location and side of the fracture.The findings indicate a high incidence rate of fracture cases referred for physical therapy in the three selected hospitals. Age, gender, study locations, regions, occupations, and diagnosis influence the characteristics of the fractures. These characteristics were more pronounced in males (61.8%) than in females. The study findings have implication for fracture prevention, resource allocation, clinical management, research, curricular revision, and policy development.