Epidemiological study of head, neck and spinal cord trauma in West Azerbaijan province and predicting the severity of injuries using “Revised Trauma Score” among injured people
Keywords:
Trauma, head, neck, spinal cord, severity of injury, revised trauma score, GCS.Abstract
Background: Score Injury Severity (ISS) and Revised Trauma Score (RTS) can provide a figure to predict the patient mortality rate. RTS, a physiological examination, is helpful to examine trauma patients.This study aimed to assess the rpidemiology of head, neck and spinal cord trauma using RTS among injured people.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 6336 traumatic patients living in West Azerbaijan province during 2019-2023. The data collected through “West Azerbaijan province's national trauma registration program” were demographic and trauma-related variables like age, sex, marital status, education, trauma mechanism, occupation, vital signs, verbal, visual, and motor Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). RTS criteria was used to predict the patients’ status.
Results: Mean age of the patients was 33.39years, and 71.9% of the patients (N=4557) were male. The majority of the patients (24.1%, N=1531) had primary eduation following illiteracy (23.8%, N=1507). The most common cause of the traum was road traffic accidents (38.3%, N=2429) following fall (23.1%, N=1461). Regarding car safty, only 6.2% patients (N=391) had fasten safty belt. None of the patients used child seat. At the time of accident, 0.7% (N=47) reported the correct performance of airbag. In motorcycles, 0.8% (N=52) reported the use of helmet. Mean blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, spo2 and GCS score was 116.75±17.62, 86.99±31.67, 16.74±2.98, 95.02±10.52, 14.70±1.79, respectively. The ISS and RTS had directly reverse correlation (r=-0.393, P<0.001). Age (P<0.001), Spo2 (P=0.003) and ISS (P<0.001) were good predictor for RTS. Patients who died had higher ISS score showing bad situation of the injured patients as well as RTS in patients who died were lower compared to non-expired patients (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Use of RTS and ISS can predict the final status of the injuired patients but RTS considers more vital signs involved in the life of the patients.
