Factors influencing outcome of head injury patients at a tertiary care teaching hospital in India.

BACKGROUND Trauma is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in people younger than 45 years and head injury is mostly highly weighted predictor of outcome in trauma population, anything than can improve the outcome from severe head injury has the potential of improving the lives of many accident victims. OBJECTIVE A study regarding factors influencing outcome of traumatic brain injury patients was conducted at a tertiary care hospital of Srinagar (India). The basic predictors in this study included age, sex, rural/urban, time taken from site of trauma to arrival at hospital, mode of transportation, referral from other hospitals, referral to other hospitals, and Glasgow Coma Scale. METHODS Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) patients (n 547) were taken prospectively by simple random sampling method for a period of one year (2004) for this study. RESULTS Majority of patients belonged to age group 0 to 10 years (25.5%) and a maximum death (8) were seen in age group 51 to 60 years. Maximum number of patients were males (75.9%) and (71.1%) TBI patients were from rural areas. (26.7%) reached this hospital within a period of one hour. (66%) were shifted through ambulance service. 6.4% expired after treatment. CONCLUSION Factors responsible for improved outcome in severe head injury patients are improvement in early recognition, resuscitation and triage, coupled with prompt computed tomography (CT) scanning and aggressive surgical management.