Measurement of severity for nonhospitalized injuries in the pediatric age group

To better classify minor injuries in the pediatric outpatient population, we empirically developed a scale to predict functional impairment, one week and one month postinjury, based on data available at the time of care. A sample of 857 injured children aged five to 19 years was randomly split into two subsamples. Using logistic regression techniques, predictive models were developed and confirmed on the subsamples and then applied to the full sample. Age, location of injury, and type of injury were predictive of impairment one week post-injury; however, type of injury was the only consistently significant predictor. Type of injury, specifically fracture, dislocation, and sprain, and location of injury (lower extremity) were significant predictors of functional impairment one month postinjury; however, once again, the type of injury was the only variable consistently significant across all models. Other than the type of injury, the variables available at the time of care were too uniform between disabled and nondisa-bled patients to be useful in developing a severity scale for minor injuries. We conclude that other outcome measurements or scale development techniques should be explored to develop a useful classification scheme for minor injuries.