Abstract
Objectives:Orthopaedists often speculate how weather and school schedule may influence pediatric orthopedic trauma volume, but few studies have examined this. This study aims to determine: how do weather patterns, day, month, season and public school schedule influence the daily frequency of pediatric orthopedic trauma consults and admissions?Methods:With IRB approval, orthopedic trauma data from a level 1 pediatric trauma center, including number of daily orthopedic trauma consults and admissions, were collected from July 2009 to March 2012. Historical weather data (high temperatures, precipitation and hours of daylight), along with local public school schedule data were collected for the same time period. Univariate and multivariate regression models were used to show the average number of orthopedic trauma consults and admissions as a function of weather and temporal variables.Results:High temperature, precipitation, month and day of the week significantly affected the number of daily consults and admissions. The number of consults and admissions increased by 1% for each degree increase in temperature (p=0.001 and p<0.001, respectively), and decreased by 21% for each inch of precipitation (p<0.001, p=0.006). Daily consults on snowy days decreased by an additional 16% compared to days with no precipitation. November had the lowest daily consult and admission rate, while September had the highest. Daily consult rate was lowest on Wednesdays and highest on Saturdays. Holiday schedule was not independently significant.Conclusion:Pediatric orthopedic trauma consultations and admissions are highly linked to temperature and precipitation, as well as day of the week and time of year.
Highlights
Orthopaedists often speculate how weather and school schedule may influence pediatric orthopedic trauma volume, but few studies have assessed this
Few studies have looked at daily weather patterns and temporal factors as they effect a population of children, whose play activities are influenced by weather and school schedules [7, 9]
In addition to the potential effects of weather on consults and admissions, we considered season, month, day of the week, weekend, school vacations, and non-school days, and analyzed whether the number of consults or admissions varied according to these variables
Summary
Orthopaedists often speculate how weather and school schedule may influence pediatric orthopedic trauma volume, but few studies have assessed this. A warm and sunny summer weekend may keep orthopedic trauma surgeons busy, 1874-3250/16. The Effect of Weather Patterns and Temporal Factors. The assumption that weather patterns influence orthopedic trauma is supported in the literature [1 - 12]. Several studies in the general surgery and orthopedic literature show adult trauma to be positively correlated with temperature and negatively correlated with precipitation [4, 8, 9]. Few studies have looked at daily weather patterns and temporal factors as they effect a population of children, whose play activities are influenced by weather and school schedules [7, 9].
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