The application of a trauma index to assess injury severity and prognosis in hospitalized patients with acute trauma

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the application value of a trauma index (TI) to assess condition and likelihood of death in hospitalized patients with acute trauma (AT). Methods: Trauma index scores and injury severity scores (ISS) were assessed in 1,802 randomly selected cases of AT-hospitalized patients. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to compare the clinical values of TI and ISS values to predict outcomes in AT-hospitalized patients. Results: The area under the ROC curve for TI scores was 0.896 (95% CI [0.881, 0.909]), while for ISS, it was 0.792 (95% CI [0.773, 0.811]). This difference was not statistically significant (z = 3.236, P = 0.001). Potentially critical disease conditions in AT-hospitalized patients were best identified when TI scores were ≥ 16 points and ISS values were ≥ 22 points. Conclusions: Trauma Index scores exhibited a higher resolution for outcome prediction in AT-hospitalized patients compared to ISS values. The implementation of this scale was simple, reliable, easy to learn, and could quickly identify disease, which is vital for early detection and treatment of critical trauma patients.