The RIGHT Scoring System for the Medicolegal Classification of Head Injury

In India, in case of an allegation of assault, the medical officer is required to classify the nature of injury into simple, grievous, and dangerous based upon the Indian Penal Code, which is outdated and has numerous gray areas.

The aim of this study is twofold: first, to formulate an objective scoring system for the medicolegal classification of head injuries and Second to validate the proposed scoring system on patients with head injury.

A panel of experts consisting of neurosurgeons, radiologists, and forensic specialists came up with an objective scoring system, coined as the RIGHT (radiological-intervention-Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)-based head trauma) scoring system consisting of three parameters, namely, the motor subscore of the GCS, computerized tomography image findings, and management of the patient. This was used to classify head injuries-into simple, grievous, and dangerous. A single-centre pilot study was planned-including patients with head trauma reporting to the emergency department. Medicolegal nature of the head injury was classified according to the proposed RIGHT score. A 6-month follow-up was performed using the Glasgow Outcome Score (GOS).

In total, 130 patients with head injury reported to the emergency department. There was a significant correlation between the RIGHT score assigned upon admission and the GOS at 6 months (P < 0.001).

As the scoring system could be applied objectively and a significant correlation between nature of injury given by RIGHT score and 6-month outcome was present; therefore, the RIGHT scoring system proved to be an effective method in unambiguously classifying the nature of head injury for medicolegal opinions.