title: Chart for outcome prediction in severe head injury.
abstract: An analysis of clinical and demographic data of 264 patients with severe head injury showed that a combination of the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, oculocephalic responses, and age can provide a simple but reliable prediction of outcome in severe head injury. Addition of other clinical data, excluding intracranial pressure and evoked potentials, improved the predictability only negligibly. A simple chart, which is constructed from the application of the logistic regression model, can be used to determine the odds of a good outcome from the combination of the three factors. A method is given by which the GCS score of a patient with a missing verbal response score can be accurately approximated in order to complete the chart. Among other values, the odds of a good outcome provide the clinician with a reliable measure of the relative severity of a patient's injury. The accuracy of the chart in prediction is expected to be 80% or above.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003128:Coma / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010808:Physical Examination