Role of pre referral intubation in cases of traumatic brain injury: a hospital based study in the sub himalayan region

Author: 
Dig Vijay Singh Thakur., Davinder Kumar Verma., Rahul Gupta.,Bhavya Thakur,. Tushar Patial., Vikas Singh and Janak Raj

Background: Traumatic Brain Injury is a major public health problem in India. It is the leading cause of mortality, morbidity, disability and socioeconomic losses in the Indian subcontinent. In order to prevent secondary brain injury from hypoxia and hypercapnia, aggressive pre-hospital airway control has been advocated. The objective of this study was to find out the association of pre- referral intubation and various outcomes in patients of traumatic brain injury.
Materials & Methods: It was an observational descriptive study conducted in the Departments of General Surgery and Neurosurgery Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla. Data was collected, entered and cleaned using Microsoft excel sheet. Chi-square test was used as the test of significance to find out the association between the different categorical variables. P value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.
Results & Discussion: There were 264 patients of traumatic brain injury with the mean age of 32.80 years (SD=15.64). The association of pre hospital intubation and different outcomes like death, fully recovered, no recovery and referred was not found to be statistically significant (p = 0.223). The medical and paramedical staff should be regularly provided with hands on training of Advanced Traumatic Life Support (ATLS) course.
Conclusion: This will significantly help reduce the morbidity and mortality of patients with traumatic brain injury.

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DOI: 
http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijcar.2018.14660.2668
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