Background: Minor head trauma is a common pediatric phenomenon. However, all outcome studies to date are hospital-based, a setting where injury acuity may be greater. The study goal was to describe the short-term outcome of head injury in young children treated in a community-based urgent care (UC) setting.
Methods: Design Telephone Follow-up Survey Setting: TEREM - Emergency Medical Centers - a nationwide system of community-based UC facilities. The clinical, laboratory and radiological information of all patient encounters of these clinics are stored in a centralized data warehouse. Participants: All patients aged 0-7 years who presented to any TEREM branch with a chief complaint of head injury between 20/7/2015 and 6/12/2015. Data Collected: Parental assessment of child’s current status (improved, same, worse), remaining symptoms (if any), medical follow up, including readmission (if any).
Results: During the study period, 1057 children were treated for head injury, of whom 166 were referred to hospital. Parental surveys were completed for 619 (69%) of the remaining 891 cases. Of parents surveyed, 84.8% said that their child greatly improved, only two said the child was ‘worse’. Most children (84%) had no lingering symptoms. Most children had no follow-up in any medical facility. Among the 16.6% who did follow-up, most (91.8%) were seen by their health fund family physician. Those who went to ED were discharged except for two who had unrelated admissions.
Conclusions: Most head trauma sent home from community-based facilities remain well. This data suggests current head trauma practices in this setting are safe.
