Severe traumatic brain injury in Austria VI: effects of guideline-based management

The goal of this paper is to report relations between health outcomes and implementation of individual recommendations of the guidelines.

Data sets from 405 patients included by 5 Austrian hospitals were available. The analysis focused on the compliance of treatment modalities to TBI guidelines recommendations. Compliance was evaluated based on scores developed specifically for this purpose. To evaluate the relations between the TBI guidelines compliance and outcomes the estimation of odds ratios was computed using multiple as well as logistic regression with age, ISS and initial GCS used to control confounding.

The option on prehospital resuscitation was followed in 84%, the guideline on early resuscitation was followed in 79%. The guideline on intracranial pressure treatment threshold was the most closely followed one (89%). The option on cerebral perfusion pressure was followed in less than 30% of patients. Only the scores on resuscitation of blood pressure and oxygenation and on cerebral perfusion pressure were positively and statistically significantly related to ICU survival. Positive relations were also found for adherence to the recommendations on the type of monitoring, hyperventilation (guideline), prophylactic use of anti-seizure drugs, and the total of scores. The other recommendations were negatively related to ICU survival, but computed odds ratios were statistically not significant. Analysis of relations between compliance scores and length of ICU and hospitals stay in survivors showed that adherence to the recommendations on type of monitoring was related to a reduction of length of stay in ICU and hospital, adherence to the hyperventilation guideline was related to shortened ICU, but increased hospital stay, and adherence to the guideline on mannitol was related to reduced days in hospital, but not to days in ICU. Implementing the standard on corticosteroid use was related to a reduction of days both in hospital and ICU. Using the standard on prophylactic use of anti-seizure drugs was related to a reduction in ICU days. If all the recommendations were closely followed an increase of days in ICU would be observed, while the length of stay in hospital would be reduced.

The relatively strong relation between initial resuscitation in the hospital and ICU survival provides a firm basis for future efforts of emergency teams. The positive influence of some of the recommendations on reduction of ICU or hospital days may provide economic incentives to promote guidelines implementation.