The Prognostic Significance of Injury Severity Score and Height of Fall in Free Fall Patients

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: In this study, the prognostic significance of the Injury Severity Score (ISS) and the height of fall in free-fall patients were investigated. METHODS: The medical records of 179 victims of falls from a height who were brought alive to the Emergency Department of Gyeongsang National University Hospital between January 2003 and December 2007 were analyzed. The age, the sex of the patients, the rate of admission, the hospital stay, the site of injury, the severity of injury, the rate of surgery, the site of the fall and the presence of alcohol intoxication were evaluated by using a retrospective review of the medical records. Injury severity was measured by using the ISS. Patients were categorized into four subgroups according to the height from where they had fallen. The data were statistically analyzed with using SPSS ver. 10.0. RESULTS: The admission rates for the subgroups with falls of less than 3 stories were significantly lower than those for the subgroups with higher heights of falls (70.7% vs. 100%, p<0.05). These two subgroups showed statistically significant differences in mean hospital stay (17.11+/-24.88 vs. 56.73+/-49.21, p<0.05), rate of operation (30.6% vs. 53.8%, p<0.05), and mean ISS (6.86+/-4.97 vs. 13.96+/-9.14, p<0.05). In the correlation analysis, the ISS and the mean hospital stay showed the highest correlation with correlation coefficient of 0.666. CONCLUSION: In this retrospective analysis of 179 free-fall patients, we evaluated the prognostic factors affecting the outcomes for the free-fall patients. The patients who had fallen from heights of 3 stories or higher showed statistically significant higher rates of admission, longer durations of hospital stay, higher ISSs, and higher operation rates. The most accurate factor in predicting the length of hospital stay was the ISS.