Table 2.
Injury and Hospital Care Characteristics of Children Hospitalized from 2009 to 2014 with Traumatic Brain Injury Due to Unintentional Falls
| Building Falls (n = 933) |
All Other Types of Falls (n = 22,880) |
p-value* (Building vs Other) | Urban Building Falls (n = 707) |
Non-urban Building Fallsb (n = 190) | p-value* (Urban vs Non-urban) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serious/Severe Head Injurya (%) | 591 (63.4) | 12,332 (53.9) | < 0.01 | 379 (53.6) | 112 (58.9) | < 0.01 |
| Serious/Severe Overall Injurya (%) | 176 (18.9) | 2957 (12.9) | < 0.001 | 2294 (13.0) | 719 (13.4) | NS |
| Intensive Care Unit Admission (%) | 445 (47.8) | 4771 (20.9) | < 0.01 | 334 (47.2) | 85 (44.7) | NS |
| Operating Room Admission (%) | 114 (12.2) | 1201 (5.2) | < 0.01 | 87 (12.3) | 25 (13.2) | NS |
| Mechanical Ventilation (%) | 127 (13.6) | 725 (3.2) | < 0.01 | 97 (13.7) | 25 (13.2) | NS |
| Mean LOS in Days (SD) | 3.28 (6.6) | 1.75 (3.2) | < 0.01 | 3.2 (6.2) | 3.4 (7.6) | NS |
| Mean Billed Charges (SD) | $38,473 (89,234) | $16,016 (39,730) | < 0.01 | $38,633 (89,060) | $35,970 (70,098) | NS |
| Hospital Region (%) | ||||||
| Midwest | 198 (21.2) | 4847 (21.2) | < 0.001 | 129 (18.2) | 69 (36.3) | < 0.001 |
| Northeast | 128 (13.7) | 3140 (13.7) | 102 (14.4) | 25 (13.2) | ||
| South | 327 (35.0) | 10,355 (45.3) | 261 (36.9) | 57 (30.0) | ||
| West | 280 (30.0) | 4538 (19.8) | 215 (30.4) | 39 (20.5) | ||
| Hospital Level 1 Trauma Designation (%) | ||||||
| Yes | 809 (86.7) | 18,995 (83.0) | 0.003 | 613 (86.7) | 161 (84.7) | NS |
| No | 124 (13.3) | 3885 (17.0) | 94 (13.3) | 29 (15.3) | ||
Legend: LOS length of stay, SD standard deviation
aSerious/Severe head injury was identified if a child had a head abbreviated injury scale score of 3–6; Serious/Severe overall injury severity was identified if a child had a total injury severity score of ≥ 15
*p -values obtained using Chi-square or Mann-Whitney U tests to evaluate for group differences
bReflects children from Small Suburban Areas, Large Rural Towns, or Small Rural Town/Isolated Rural Areas
Among children hospitalized with a TBI due a building fall, community-type was unknown for 36 (3.9%) children, so they are not included in the urban or nonurban columns