Kyung Won Park, Sung Wook Song, Woo Jeong Kim, Jeong Ho Kang, Ji Hwan Bu, Sung Kgun Lee, Seo Young Ko, Soo Hoon Lee, Chang Bae Park, Jin Gu Lee, Jong Yeon Kang, Jaeyoon Ha, Jiwon Kim
Clin Exp Emerg Med 2025;12(4):358-368. Published online January 15, 2025
Objective Traumatic brain injury (TBI) often occurs alongside injuries to other body regions, worsening patient outcomes. This study evaluates the impact of concomitant injuries on clinical outcomes in patients with isolated versus non-isolated TBI.
Methods This retrospective cross-sectional analysis was conducted using data from the Emergency Department-based Injury In-depth Surveillance (EDIIS) for 180,058 TBI patients admitted to 23 tertiary hospitals from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2022. Patients were categorized into isolated TBI group (iTBI; n=127,673) and non-isolated TBI group (niTBI; n=52,385) based on injury diagnostic codes. Clinical outcomes—24-hour and 30-day mortality, hospital admission, and interhospital transfer—were compared. Multivariate logistic regression analyses adjusted for potential confounders were performed.
Results The niTBI patients exhibited significantly higher 24-hour mortality (1.5% vs. 0.4%), 30-day mortality (2.6% vs. 1.0%), hospital admissions (24.5% vs. 8.4%), and interhospital transfers (3.6% vs. 1.1%) than iTBI patients (all P<0.001). Concomitant injuries increased the adjusted odds of 24-hour mortality (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.456; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.286–1.648) and 30-day mortality (aOR, 1.111; 95% CI, 1.022–1.208). Thoracic injuries were the most significant predictor of adverse outcomes in niTBI patients, increasing the odds of 24-hour mortality by nearly sixfold (aOR, 5.958; 95% CI 5.057–7.019).
Conclusions Concomitant injuries significantly worsen clinical outcomes in TBI patients, with thoracic injuries being the most critical predictor of mortality. These findings highlight the importance of comprehensive trauma assessments and targeted prevention strategies to improve survival rates and optimize resource allocation for patients with multiple injuries.
Objective Agriculture is a hazardous industry. However, previous studies have focused on injuries to agricultural workers without comparison with injuries to nonagricultural workers. Therefore, we compared the clinical characteristics and outcomes of injuries reported at an emergency department (ED) between agricultural workers and nonagricultural workers.
Methods We established a prospective ED-based agricultural injury surveillance system at a tertiary university hospital. Adult patients visiting the ED for an injury were divided into farmer and non-farmer groups depending on their engagement with agriculture. Using an adjusted multivariate analysis and propensity score matching (age, sex, inhabitant, and insurance type), we compared the clinical characteristics and outcomes of injuries between the farmer and non-farmer groups.
Results In total, 38,556 injured adult patients (37,746 in the non-farmer group and 810 in the farmer group) were available for the unmatched sample analysis. The 1,620 matched subjects were equally classified after one-to-one nearest-neighbor propensity score matching. A multivariate logistic regression analysis of the unmatched sample revealed higher adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for intensive care unit admission (adjusted OR, 1.752; P=0.003) and overall surgery (adjusted OR, 1.870; P<0.001) in the farmer group. In contrast, univariate logistic regression analyses of the propensity score–matched sample found a higher OR in the farmer group only for overall surgery (OR, 1.786; P<0.001).
Conclusion Injuries of agricultural workers had higher odds only of requiring surgery; differences in injury-related mortality between groups were not statistically significant in either the matched or unmatched sample analyses.
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Stress, Health, and Injury Among Illinois Farmers Josie M. Rudolphi, Salah Issa, Courtney Cuthbertson, Kaleigh Barnett American Journal of Industrial Medicine.2025; 68(9): 761. CrossRef