All Body Region Injuries are Not Equal: Differences in Pediatric Discharge Functional Status Based on Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) Body Regions and Severity Scores
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Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗Article · Oct 2021 · 1 min read
In brief
In brief
This multicenter study examined how AIS severity scores relate to functional impairment at discharge in children with isolated body region injuries. Researchers found that worse functional status correlated with increasing AIS severity only for spine injuries, while head injuries with severely impaired GCS showed greater functional impairment regardless of AIS score, suggesting AIS alone may not adequately predict functional outcomes across all injury types.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Purpose
: Functional outcomes have been proposed for assessing quality of pediatric trauma care. Outcomes assessments often rely on Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) severity scores to adjust for injury characteristics, but the relationship between AIS severity and functional impairment is unknown. This study's primary aim was to quantify functional impairment associated with increasing AIS severity scores within body regions. The secondary aim was to assess differences in impairment between body regions based on AIS severity.
Methods
: Children with serious (AIS≥3) isolated body region injuries enrolled in a multicenter prospective study were analyzed. The primary outcome was functional status at discharge measured using the Functional Status Scale (FSS). Discharge FSS was compared 1) within each body region across increasing AIS severity scores, and 2) between body regions for injuries with matching AIS scores.
Results
: The study included 266 children, with 16% having abnormal FSS at discharge. Worse FSS was associated with increasing AIS severity only for spine injuries. Abnormal FSS was observed in a greater proportion of head injury patients with a severely impaired initial Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) (GCS