Purpose: Although trauma is the leading cause of death for the pediatric population, few studies have addressed the preventable/potentially preventable death rate (PPPDR) attributable to trauma.
Methods: This is a retrospective study of trauma-related death records occurring in Harris County, Texas in 2014. Descriptive and Chi-squared tests were conducted for two groups, pediatric and adult trauma deaths in relation to demographic characteristics, mechanism of injury, death location and survival time.
Results: There were 105 pediatric (age < 18 years) and 1738 adult patients. The PPPDR for the pediatric group was 21.0%, whereas the PPPDR for the adult group was 37.2% (p = 0.001). Analysis showed fewer preventable/potentially preventable (P/PP) deaths resulting from any blunt trauma mechanism in the pediatric population than in the adult population (19.6% vs. 48.4%, p < 0.001). Amongst the pediatric population, P/PP traumatic brain injury (TBI) were more common in the youngest age range (age 0-5) vs. the older (6-12 years) pediatric and adolescent (13-17 years) patients.
Conclusion: Our results identify areas of opportunities for improving pediatric trauma care. Although the overall P/PP death rate is lower in the pediatric population than the adult, opportunities for improving initial acute care, particularly TBI, exist.
Keywords: Injury; Mortality data; Pediatric trauma; Pediatric trauma death; Trauma systems.