Medic One Funded Projects

RCPCH Annual Conference 2015
Maddie Atkinson

The Royal Hospital for Sick Children will be moved from its current site to Little France in 2017, becoming a paediatric major trauma centre. There is currently little published literature on the impact of paediatric major trauma centres and no central database of statistics available for paediatric trauma in Scotland.

The aims of the study were therefore to determine key trends in adolescent trauma presentations to the Emergency Department at the RIE. All adolescent presentations to the RIE were searched via TRAK then analysed to determine trauma presentations and outcomes of those admitted. Following this, a TRAK based search of admitted patients allowed the calculation of AIS and ISS using the AIS manual and ISS calculator. The results showed that just 2% of trauma presentations were admitted, and of the admitted patients, just 7% were defined as ‘major trauma’ with an ISS>15. These admissions correlated with a longer hospital stay, more likely to be admitted to ITU and arrival by ambulance.

This showed that overall, adolescent trauma is much less common than adult trauma, with lower injury severity scores and better outcomes. This has implications for planning and resourcing facilities for adolescent trauma at the paediatric major trauma centre in Edinburgh.'