Abstract
Purpose
Since trauma is the leading cause of death and disability among children, understanding
injury patterns may reduce morbidity and mortality through targeted prevention efforts.
The purpose of this study was to identify pediatric injury patterns by year of age
using a large national database.
Methods
We searched the National Trauma Database (NTDB) Research Data Set 7.0 for patients
aged 0–18 years with the following relevant ICD-9 external-cause-of-injury codes (e-codes).
We also reviewed our institutional trauma registry data (1999–2009). Data were analyzed
using χ2 analysis and ANOVA with significance defined as p < 0.05.
Results
We identified 354,196 pediatric trauma patients. The leading MOI were motor-vehicle
collisions (MVC) for ages 10–18 years and falls for ages 0–9 years. Fire was the second leading MOI among 1-year-olds, but not a major MOI in other
age groups. Penetrating trauma was the MOI for 21% of injuries among adolescents with
public or no insurance (versus 7.5% adolescents with private insurance). Injury severity
scores were highest for children < 1 year old and children 14–18 years old. Our review of 1209 patients from our institution yielded additional detail.
Conclusion
MVC and falls remain leading pediatric MOI. In our year-of-age analysis, we found
several interesting trends, including a higher-than-expected rate of penetrating trauma.
Our findings may support targeted injury prevention efforts.
Key words
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References
- Pediatric applied trauma network: a call to action.J Trauma. 2010; 69: 1304-1307
- World report on childhood injury prevention.
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
March 8,
2013
Received:
February 11,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
