A comparative study of clinical and autopsy findings (clinical audit) in 100 cases died of trauma.

ABSTRACT

Clinical audit is the systematic analysis of quality of any aspect of patient care with the aim of identifying possible improvements. In the present study one aspect of clinical audit - a comparison of clinical findings and autopsy findings was done in 100 cases died of trauma and brought for autopsy to Medical College, Trivandrum. This Study was conducted to find out the frequency of discrepancy and the type of co-existing injuries along with the missed injury. The discrepancies were classified according to the classification by Battle et al and Andersen et al. No discrepancy was observed in 62%, class I discrepancy (Major) in 25%, class II (Major) in 3%, and class III & IV (Minor) in 5% each. The injuries very rarely over looked were head injuries (11.4%) and spinal injuries (16.7%). The most frequent missed ones were abdominal injuries (64.3%) and chest injuries (63.9%). In majority of missed injuries head injury was a common occurrence i.e. 88.8% of missed abdominal injury, 78.1% of missed chest injuries, and all cases of missed spinal injuries.