International comparison of regional trauma registries.

BACKGROUND

A regional trauma registry (RTR) collects injury data from multiple hospitals in a given region; however, the differences among RTRs have not yet been thoroughly investigated.

AIM

The objective of this study was to identify RTRs worldwide and describe the structural differences, inclusion criteria and demographics among RTRs, as well as to investigate the effect of the inclusion criteria on patient demographics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We included state, national and multinational trauma registries in this study. We searched for RTRs using the MEDLINE database and a general Internet search engine. We abstracted the funding sources, AIS versions, data submission methods, inclusion criteria and patient demographics of each RTR. We selected the following three outcome measures for comparison: the number of case registrations per year per hospital, proportion of cases with an Injury Severity Score (ISS)>15 and crude mortality rate. We compared the outcome measures for RTRs that included 'an ISS>15', 'an admission to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)' or 'a transferred patient for higher care' with those of RTRs that did not.

RESULTS

We identified 17 RTRs (11 national, 4 state and 2 multinational). Government funding was the most common funding source. The RTRs most frequently used the AIS 98 or AIS 2008. Web-based data submission was the most common. A significantly increased crude mortality rate was seen with 'an admission to the ICU' and 'an ISS>15'.

CONCLUSION

We identified 17 RTRs, analysed the differences among RTRs and investigated the effect of the inclusion criteria on patient demographics. These findings may be useful when improving or developing RTRs.