Prediction of mortality risk in patients with traffic injury: A case study in tabriz hospitals, Iran

Trauma caused by traffic accidents is one of the main causes of mortality in the world. The trauma is a time-dependent condition. Trauma scoring systems help service providers to determine the severity of the injury and mortality risk and provide appropriate and timely services. This study aimed to predict mortality risk in patients with traffic injuries in Tabriz hospitals.

This descriptive cross-sectional study included 11,238 traffic-injured patients. Databases of the emergency medicine service and forensic medicine were used to collect information. Glasgow Coma Scale, Age, and Systolic Blood Pressure (GAP) scoring system, binary logistic regression model, odds ratio with 95% confidence interval, and sensitivity and specificity were used to predict mortality.

Overall, 71 cases of death were identified. Pedestrians had the most rates of deaths with 31 cases (43.66%). Head trauma with 31 cases (43.66%) was the main cause of death. Mean (standard deviation) of the GAP score was 21.8 (1.8). The death rates in high-, moderate-, and low-risk groups were 22.4%, 3.18%, and 0.42%, respectively. The likelihood of death in people with saturation of oxygen (SO2) ≤95 was 1.96 times higher than those with SO2>95. The likelihood of death increased by 0.001 times each year. Furthermore, when the GAP score was ≤18, sensitivity was 64%, and for the GAP score of ≤10, sensitivity was 15.5%.

GAP score seems to be a reliable and easy-to-use scoring method for predicting traffic injury mortality in an Iranian setting and yields reasonable results concerning international standards.