Comparison of pre-injury recalled Health Status (HS) data of trauma patients and HS of the general population.

PURPOSE

Significant differences exist between retrospectively collected pre-injury Health Status (HS) of trauma patients and the HS of the general population. Compared to the general population, the trauma population includes a larger proportion of individuals with a low level of socio-economic status. The aim was to compare retrospectively collected pre-injury HS with HS of a sample of Dutch individuals not only adjusted for age and gender, but also for educational level.

METHODS

Within three months post-trauma, pre-injury HS (n = 2987) was collected by using the EuroQol-five-dimension-3-level (EQ-5D-3L) questionnaire. Data were abstracted from the Brabant Injury Outcome Surveillance. The reference cohort (n = 1839) included a sample of the Dutch general population. Multiple regression was used to compare HS of both cohorts.

RESULTS

A higher recalled pre-injury EQ-5D-3L score of the injury cohort was reported compared to the HS of the reference cohort after adjustment for age (β = 0.014 [95% CI: 0.001,0.027] for males and β = 0.018 [95% CI: -0.001, 0.036] for females). After adjustment for age and educational level, the Beta showed a ≥10% increasement: males; unadjusted β = 0.006 [95% CI: -0.007, 0.019] to β = 0.014 [95% CI: 0.001, 0.027] after age adjustment to β = 0.020 [95% CI: 0.007, 0.033] after adjustment for age and educational level, females; unadjusted β = -0.018 [95% CI: -0.035, -0.001] to β = 0.018 [95% CI: -0.001, 0.036] after age adjustments to β = 0.025 [95% CI: 0.007, 0.043] after adjustments for age and educational level. After adjustment for age, gender and educational level, the injury cohort reported prior to the trauma less problems on the 'pain/discomfort' (OR = 0.522 [95% CI: 0.454, 0.602]) and the 'anxiety/depression' (OR = 0.745 [95% CI: 0.619, 0.897]) dimensions, as compared to the reference cohort. In contrast, the injury cohort reported significantly more problems on the 'self-care' dimension (OR = 1.497 [95% CI: 0.1.112, 2.016]) prior to the trauma.

CONCLUSIONS

Injured patients report better recalled pre-injury HS compared to the HS of the reference cohort. After adjustment for educational level, the difference in HS between the injury cohort and the reference cohort increases, underlining that other confounders might also influence HS.