Citation

Gagné M, Moore L, Sirois MJ, Simard M, Beaudoin C, Kuimi BL. J. Trauma Acute Care Surg. 2016; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

From the Bureau d'information et d'études en santé des populations (M.G., M.S., C.B.), Institut national de santé publique du Québec, Québec City, Canada; Département de médecine sociale et preventive (M.G., L.M., M.S., C.B., B.L.B.K.), Faculté de médecine, Université Laval, Québec City, Canada; Axe Santé des Populations et pratiques Optimales en Santé (Population Health and Opitmal Health Practices Research Unit) (L.M., B.L.B.K.), Traumatologie - Urgence - Soins intensifs (Trauma - Emergency - Critical Care Medicine), Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Québec (Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus), Université Laval, Québec City, Canada; Centre d'Excellence sur le Vieillissement de Québec (M.-J.S.), Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Québec (Hôpital de l'Enfant-Jésus) (M.-J.S.), Université Laval, Québec City, Canada; and the Département de réadaptation, Faculté de médecine, Université Laval, Québec City, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/TA.0000000000001319

PMID

27906871

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is the main classification system used for population-based traumatic brain injury (TBI) surveillance activities but does not contain direct information on injury severity. ICD-based injury severity measures can be empirically derived or mapped to the Abbreviated Injury Scale, but no single approach has been formally recommended for TBI.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the accuracy of different ICD-based injury severity measures for predicting in-hospital mortality and intensive care unit (ICU) admission in TBI patients.

METHODS: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study. We identified all patients aged 16 years and over with a TBI diagnosis who received acute care between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2013 from the Quebec Hospital Discharge Database. The accuracy of five ICD-based injury severity measures for predicting mortality and ICU admission were compared using measures of discrimination (area under the receiver operating characteristic [AUC]) and calibration (calibration plot and the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit statistic).

RESULTS: Of 31,087 traumatic brain-injured patients in the study population, 9.0% died in hospital and 34.4% were admitted to the ICU. Among ICD-based severity measures that were assessed, the multiplied derivative of ICD-based injury severity score (ICISS-Multiplicative) demonstrated the best discriminative ability for predicting in-hospital mortality (AUC: 0.858, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.852-0.864) and ICU admissions (AUC: 0.813, 95%CI 0.808-0.818). Calibration assessments showed good agreement between observed and predicted in-hospital mortality for ICISS measures. All severity measures presented high agreement between observed and expected probabilities of ICU admission for all deciles of risk.

CONCLUSIONS: ICD-based injury severity measures can be used to accurately predict in-hospital mortality and ICU admission in TBI patients. ICISS-Multiplicative generally outperformed other ICD-based injury severity measures and should be preferred to control for differences in baseline characteristics between TBI patients in surveillance activities or injury research when only ICD codes are available. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III. STUDY TYPE: Prognostic study.

Language: en