Childhood head injury: causes, outcome, and outcome predictors

Abstract

Head injury is the most common cause of death following trauma among children in most developed and underdeveloped countries. Management of the head-injured child remained conservative in the hands of the general and orthopedic surgeons until October 2000 in our center. To determine outcome and outcome-predictors in children managed nonoperatively for head injury in Ilorin, Nigeria, a 10-year retrospective study of children managed for head injury was done. Outcome was measured by Glasgow outcome scoring. Clinical variables including age, gender, and postresuscitation Glasgow coma score were tested against Glasgow outcome score by linear regression analysis. During the study period (1989–1999), 267 children (173 males and 94 females) aged 16 years and below with head injuries were admitted. Their injuries were due mostly to road traffic accidents (64.1%) and falls (30.7%). Other injuries were domestic, sport-related, or due to assaults or the fall of collapsed walls, water-pots, and coconut shells on victims’ heads. Head injuries were isolated in 60% of patients but associated with skeletal, facial, and spinal injuries in 58, 18, and seven cases, respectively. They were mild in 100 (37.5%), moderate in 73 (27.3%), but severe in 94 (35.2%) cases. Outcome was good in 207 (77.5%) but fatal in 38 (14.2%) children. Only age (p=0.0206) and coma score (p=0.0000), but not gender (p= 0.3043), could predict outcome. Outcome was good in more than 75% of cases of head-injured children managed nonoperatively. It varied with the patient’s age and postresuscitation Glasgow coma score.