title: Severe traumatic brain injury in Austria I: introduction to the study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The goals of the Austrian Severe Traumatic Brain Injury Study were to investigate the current management of patients with severe traumatic brain injury in Austria and to assess the effects of introducing guidelines for the management of severe traumatic brain injury upon the outcome of these patients. The purpose of this paper is to give a detailed description of the goals, methods, and overall results of the study, and to provide an introduction to a series of papers where the results of the study will be presented and discussed.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study included patients with severe traumatic brain injury from five centers in Austria. Data on accident, pre-hospital treatment, hospital treatment, and patient status were collected prospectively. Patient data was entered daily for the first 10 days in hospital and then up to a year after discharge from intensive care. All data was entered into an internet-based database. The data was evaluated to describe epidemiology, pre-hospital treatment, medical management, and surgical management; the evaluation also assessed the effects of guideline-based management on traumatic brain injury patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The data set comprises a total of 492 patient records from the 5 participating hospitals; this data was collected over a 3-year period. Data quality is considered good; the number of missing data items is low. ICU mortality was 31.6%. Final outcome: 23% of the patients had a good recovery, 10% had moderate disabilities, 8% had severe disabilities, 6% were persistent vegetative, and 38% died. Final outcome was unknown in 16% of patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study proved that an internet-based database may be a valuable tool for prospective multicenter studies if many variables have to be collected for a high number of patients. The results of our study provide enough evidence to initiate further research on many aspects of the management of traumatic brain injury patients.
authors.affiliation: INRO (International Neurotrauma Research Organisation), Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rusnak
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Janciak
authors.forename: Marek
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Majdan
authors.forename: Ingrid
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Wilbacher
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Mauritz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001317:Austria; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000401:mortality; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D003422:Critical Care / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019992:Databases as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D015600:Glasgow Coma Scale; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D015601:Injury Severity Score; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011446:Prospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis