Article

OBJECTIVE: To describe similarities and differences in the number of civilian
traumatic brain injury (TBI)-related hospitalizations and emergency department
visits between national databases that capture US hospital data. PARTICIPANTS:
TBI-related hospitalizations included in the National Hospital Discharge Survey
(NHDS) and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Nationwide Inpatient Sample
(HCUP-NIS) and emergency department visits in the National Hospital Ambulatory
Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) and HCUP Nationwide Emergency Department Sample
(HCUP-NEDS) for 2006-2010. DESIGN: Cross-sectional design. MAIN MEASURES:
Nationwide counts of TBI-related medical encounters. RESULTS: Overall, the
frequency of TBI is comparable when comparing NHDS with HCUP-NIS and NHAMCS with
HCUP-NEDS. However, annual counts in both NHDS and NHAMCS are consistently
unstable when examined in smaller subgroups, such as by age group and injury
mechanism. Injury mechanism is consistently missing from many more records in
NHDS compared with HCUP-NIS. CONCLUSION: Given the large sample size of HCUP-NIS
and HCUP-NEDS, these data can offer a valuable resource for examining TBI-related
hospitalization and emergency department visits, especially by subgroup. These
data hold promise for future examinations of annual TBI counts, but ongoing
comparisons with national probability samples will be necessary to ensure that
HCUP continues to track with estimates from these data.

Langue : ANGLAIS