Prognostic factors for time-to-death from traumatic brain injury following road traffic accidents

Abstract

Abstract Road traffic accident is among the major public health problems worldwide and many studies have shown that it is the major contributor of traumatic brain injury especially in low and middle-income countries. The main objective of this study was to identify the prognostic factors for time-to-death from traumatic brain injury following road traffic accident. This study was conducted based on data obtained from charts of traumatic brain injury patients following road traffic accident and admitted to the emergency department of Addis Ababa Burn, Emergency and trauma Hospital between September 12, 2019 and February 1, 2022. The data analysis was performed by using R version 4.1.2 and Stata version 14. Survival analysis was used to analyze the data where the Weibull accelerated failure time model was found to be the most appropriate. Of all 279 patients, 40 (14.34%) died within 30 days after the occurrence of the accident. Of the total number of patients who died during the follow-up period, 26 (65%) were males. Traumatic brain injury patients as a result of road traffic accidents, who were > 59 years old and had diffuse axonal injury, aspiration pneumonia, intracranial hemorrhage, hemothorax, increased intracranial hemorrhage, low Glasgow coma scale score and red triage category were at risk of early death.