Background: The leading cause of death in under 16 years old children is by accident. A correct assessment for traumatic severity will help clinicians having an appropriate treatment and improving pediatric mortality. Objectives: To assess the prognostic validity of indicators Pediatric Trauma Score (PTS), Coma Glassgow Scale (CGS) and Revised Trauma Score (RTS) during short term for pediatric trauma. Subjects and method: Using the 3 indicators to evaluate traumatic severity in 92 patients (34 female, 58 male) at the age of 1 month olds to 15 year olds, treated in emergency unit from January, 1993 to May, 1994 in CHRU de Lille. Results: There are 2 main accidents as traffic accident (70%) and fall (25%). Traumatic mechanisms are closed trauma (69%), cranial trauma (80%), orthopedic trauma (33%), chest trauma (18%), abdominal trauma (21%). CGS indicator is more sensitive but less specific than the other two indicators. Its predictive validity is significantly higher than the validity of PTS or RTS. The probability of hospitalized patients with CGS<6, when discharging with complication is 100%. Conclusion: CGS indicator and improvement of it is appropriate to children. It is the most suitable in short-term predicting the possibility of complications. PTS and RTS indicators seem to be better on evaluating preliminary traumatic severity.
Wounds and Injuries/diagnosis ; Child ;