title: Children and terror casualties receive preference in ICU admissions.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Trauma casualties caused by terror-related events and children injured as a result of trauma may be given preference in hospital emergency departments (EDs) due to their perceived importance. We investigated whether there are differences in the treatment and hospitalization of terror-related casualties compared to other types of injury events and between children and adults injured in terror-related events.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective study of 121 608 trauma patients from the Israel Trauma Registry during the period of October 2000-December 2005. Of the 10 hospitals included in the registry, 6 were level I trauma centers and 4 were regional trauma centers. Patients who were hospitalized or died in the ED or were transferred between hospitals were included in the registry.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All analyses were controlled for Injury Severity Score (ISS). All patients with ISS 1-24 terror casualties had the highest frequency of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions when compared with patients after road traffic accidents (RTA) and other trauma. Among patients with terror-related casualties, children were admitted to ICU disproportionally to the severity of their injury. Logistic regression adjusted for injury severity and trauma type showed that both terror casualties and children have a higher probability of being admitted to the ICU.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Injured children are admitted to ICU more often than other age groups. Also, terror-related casualties are more frequently admitted to the ICU compared to those from other types of injury events. These differences were not directly related to a higher proportion of severe injuries among the preferred groups.
authors.affiliation: Israel National Centre for Trauma and Emergency Medicine Research, Gertner Institute, Tel-Hashomer, Israel.
authors.forename: Kobi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Peleg
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rozenfeld
authors.forename: Eran
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dolev
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D015601:Injury Severity Score; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007557:Israel; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D054527:Mass Casualty Incidents / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012042:Registries; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D023481:Terrorism / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013997:Time Factors; D014218:Triage / Q000941:ethics*; D055815:Young Adult