Medical Care for Children Affected by Armed Conflict: a Systematic Literature Review

Summary. The aim of the study is to analyze the data on mortality, structure of injuries, terms of hospitalization, routing of patients and organization of medical care for children injured in armed conflicts and terrorist acts. Materials and research methods. A systematic review was performed in accordance with the recommendations of the PRISMA protocol. A comprehensive search was conducted in PubMed, ScienceDirect, E-library, and GoogleScholar databases for the period from 1995 to 2022. The search revealed 2995 publications, of which 25 papers were included in the quantitative analysis according to the inclusion criteria. Results of the study and their analysis. We analyzed 54205 cases of medical care for children injured in 15 armed conflicts and 48 terrorist attacks between 1988 and 2020. The average age of the injured children was 9.7 years; the proportion of children in the total mass of the injured was 12.7%. The average percentage of bed days in children was 10.9%; the average duration of hospitalization was 7.4 days; 82% of patients required surgery; the pediatric mortality rate was 7.6%. The most common mechanisms of injury in children were shrapnel and explosive wounds; the most frequent cause of death was craniocerebral trauma.