Prognostication of Mortality and Long term Functional Outcomes Following Traumatic Brain Injury: Can We Do Better?

Accurate prognostication of outcomes following traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects not only the aggressiveness of intervention and therapeutic decision-making, but also the clinicians’ ability to provide reliable expectations. To investigate the relative ability of clinicians to accurately predict a patient’s outcomes when compared to point of care prognostic models, we surveyed clinical providers of 86 patients with moderate-severe TBI at admission, day 3, and day 7 post-injury for a patient’s predicted functional outcome at six months and mortality. The predicted mortality and functional outcomes were compared to actual occurrence of 14 day mortality and functional outcomes at six months. A prognostic score was then calculated utilizing the Corticoid Randomization After Significant Head Injury (CRASH) and International Mission on Prognosis and Analysis of Clinical Trials (IMPACT) models and categorized as high, intermediate, and low likelihood of mortality or poor functional outcome and compared to clin...