title: Comparability of national estimates for traumatic brain injury-related medical encounters.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe similarities and differences in the number of civilian traumatic brain injury (TBI)-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits between national databases that capture US hospital data.
  
  
  METHODS
  TBI-related hospitalizations included in the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Nationwide Inpatient Sample (HCUP-NIS) and emergency department visits in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) and HCUP Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (HCUP-NEDS) for 2006-2010.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional design.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nationwide counts of TBI-related medical encounters.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, the frequency of TBI is comparable when comparing NHDS with HCUP-NIS and NHAMCS with HCUP-NEDS. However, annual counts in both NHDS and NHAMCS are consistently unstable when examined in smaller subgroups, such as by age group and injury mechanism. Injury mechanism is consistently missing from many more records in NHDS compared with HCUP-NIS.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Given the large sample size of HCUP-NIS and HCUP-NEDS, these data can offer a valuable resource for examining TBI-related hospitalization and emergency department visits, especially by subgroup. These data hold promise for future examinations of annual TBI counts, but ongoing comparisons with national probability samples will be necessary to ensure that HCUP continues to track with estimates from these data.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Christopher A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Arlene I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Greenspan
authors.forename: Likang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Marcie-Jo
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Kresnow
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult