The epidemiology of traumatic brain injury in civilian inpatients of Chinese Military Hospitals, 2001–2007

Abstract

Primary objective: To investigate the epidemiology of TBI in Chinese inpatients.

Research design: Civilian inpatients of Chinese military hospitals diagnosed with TBI between 2001–2007 were identified using ICD-9-CM codes.

Methods and procedures: Demographic characteristics, admission time, injury cause, injury severity, length of stay and outcomes were compared between ICD-9-CM diagnosis groups.

Main outcomes and results: In total, 203 553 civilian patients with TBI (74.86% male, 25.14% female) were identified from >200 Chinese military hospitals. TBI diagnoses increased by a mean of 4.67% each year. Admission peaked during the third quarter of the year and October annually. The leading causes of TBI were motor vehicle-traffic (51.41%), falls (21.49%) and assaults (15.77%). TBI was categorized by abbreviated injury scale score as mild in 36.64%, serious in 20.13%, severe in 26.81% and critical in 15.68% of inpatients. The mean length of stay was 17.8 ± 24.1 days. Recovery rate was 93.06% and mortality was 4.14%.

Conclusions: The epidemiological data may contribute to the development of effective, targeted strategies to prevent TBI.

• China
• epidemiology
• inpatient
• military hospital
• traumatic brain injury

Acknowledgment

Yunming Li, Xun Xia, Kuiying Wang, and Xiushan Zheng contributed equally to this work.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. This work was supported by the 53 China postdoctoral science foundation projects (No. 2013M532123) and the Chengdu Military Command General Hospital first funded research talents (No. 2013YG-B021).