Assessment of Ohio's adult and pediatric legislatively mandated prehospital trauma triage criteria.

BACKGROUND: The study objective was to validate prehospital indicators mandated by the Ohio legislature. METHOD: The design was a retrospective case review using adult and pediatric tools developed to assess prehospital documentation of anatomic and physiologic indicators of significant trauma. RESULTS: There were 400 adult records with Glasgow Coma Score, the most frequently cited (23.5%). Fifty-four percent of the adult cases had at least 1 item checked. There were 104 pediatric cases reviewed, where 49% of the cases had at least 1 indicator checked. CONCLUSIONS: The mandated trauma indicators appear to be valid measures for use in trauma research.