Un registro multiregionale italiano dei traumi gravi: ragioni, metodologia e risultati iniziali

Objective: project aiming at the establishment of the first Italian multiregional trauma registry and to evaluate its initial achievements. Design: Descriptive + Cohort comparison. Setting: 3 Italian hospitals, referral centers for severely traumatized patients. Patients: Trauma victims admitted between 1/7/2004 and 30/09/2004 with an Injury Severity Score (ISS>15) or requiring early admission to intensive care. Interventions: None. Measures: Indicators of quality of clinical data bases partly devised and partly derived from literature. Ten main descriptive variables of the patients with ISS>15, in general and by hospital: type of trauma, mechanism of injury, age, gender, ISS, RTS, TRISS, call-to-hospital and admission-to-ward intervals, outcome at 30 days. Results: A system of data collection on severely injured patients has been established, whose characteristics fulfill the expectations and compare well with the available references. Some aspects deserve improvement, namely the reporting of pre-hospital times by one hospital. The previous esteems on the number of cases (about 300/year/hospital) are confirmed. A substantial homogeneity among the various hospitals in regard to the main trauma descriptive variables exists. Conclusions: The project's aims have been nearly successfully attained so far. Positive future developments of the registry are possible: usage for quality improvement and research, linkage to other European registries and participation of other hospitals.