Developing traumatic brain injury data bank: Prospective study to understand the pattern of documentation and presentation

Background There are few published research reports from scattered studies on traumatic brain injuries (TBI) from the developing countries. Objectives We attempted to identify the clinico-social correlates of TBI and to determine the efficiency of documentation to find out the pattern of presentation of TBI at a rural tertiary care teaching hospital. Materials and methods A descriptive observational prospective study was performed from January to June 2010 at a tertiary care rural teaching hospital. Based on WHO guidelines “Standards for Surveillance of Neurotrauma” a data collection tool was designed. After validation by pilot study this data collection questionnaire was subjected to collect information on the participants with diagnosis of traumatic brain injury reported at the Emergency Department (ED). The collected data was entered into the TBI registry database based on Microsoft (MS) excel that was developed for analytical conclusions. Results Out of a total 414 TBI cases, the mean age was 33.47 years, 78.98 percent were male; half of all the victims were in the age 21–40 years; children (6–10 years) (6.76%) and adolescent (11–20 years) (10.39%) comprised a large group; 10.23 percent required resuscitation on admission; the mean duration of hospital stay was 5.42 days. The overall fatality was 7.75 percent; females contributed higher among fatal cases; 10.39 percent were below 10 years and nearly one-fourths (24.40%) less than 20 years is alarming. In the secular trend, highest number (33.57%) of TBI cases was reported in the month of June, followed by March (18.84%). Road traffic injuries were the commonest injury mechanism (56.76%) and mainly in the highways (57.25%). Minor associated injuries were bruises (40.10%) and abrasions (50.97%) and cuts (44.69%). Major associated injuries were few; ear, nose or throat (ENT) Bleeding (2.17%), Limb fracture (5.07%). Alcohol was risk factor in 9.42 percent cases. Of the life threatening computerized tomography (CT) scan findings subarachnoid hemorrhage was noted in 5.59 percent cases. Conclusions Early analysis of a TBI data can lead to useful information but presently there are many lacunae to collect comprehensive information in TBI cases. There is further need to understand the number of variables required and many other requirements for user-friendly secure web-based database system to maintain, analyze and to update continuously for a national TBI registry.