Abstract

PURPOSE
Trauma is one of the most common causes of death for children, and identifying severely injured children quickly in an overcrowded emergency room (ER) is difficult. Therefore, severe injury must be prevented, and the severity of injuries in children must be determined easily from their general characteristics and pre-hospital factors.
METHODS
Injured children younger than 15 years of age who visited the ER from June 2011 to May 2013 were enrolled. According to the revised trauma score (RTS) of the patients, the study population was divided in two groups, a severe group (RTS<7) and a mild group (RTS> or =7). The general characteristics and the pre-hospital factors were compared between the two groups.
RESULTS
Six hundred seventy-three children were enrolled, their mean age was 8.03 (+/-4.45) years, and 476 (70.73%) patients were male. Of these patients, 22 patients (3.27%) were in the severe group, and 651 patients (96.73%) were in the mild group. Fewer males were in the severe group than in the mild group (50.00% vs. 71.43%, p=0.030), and children in the severe group were younger than children in the mild group (3.50 vs. 8.00 years, p=0.049). In the severe group, toddlers (54.55%, p=0.036) were the most common age group. Severe injuries occurred more often in spring (32.81%) and summer (54.56%) than in autumn (9.09%) and winter (4.55%) (p=0.026). The most common places of injury in the severe group were roads (50.00%, p=0.009), and the most common mechanisms of injury in the severe group were traffic accidents (50.00%), followed by falls (31.82%) (p=0.011). Most severely injured children were transferred by ambulance (72.73%, p=0.000).
CONCLUSION
The results of this study may be helpful for identifying severely injured children quickly in the field and the ER. To prevent severe pediatric injuries, precautions and policies based on these results should be established.

• Keywords: ChildInjurySeverityPreventionTrauma