Citation

Sitsapesan HA, Lawrence TP, Sweasey C, Wester K. World Neurosurg. 2013; 79(3-4): 568-575.

Affiliation

Nuffield Department of Surgery, University of Oxford. Electronic address: hollysitsapesan@gmail.com.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.wneu.2012.09.018

PMID

23022982

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To review the sparse literature that exists on the topic of head injury assessment and management outside the high-income setting and attempt to: 1. Identify strengths and weaknesses of the currently published clinical data relating to head injuries in lower-income countries; 2. Consider specific objectives for future head injury research in the resource-limited setting. If levels of excellence in neurosurgery are to be sustainably achieved outside high-income countries, there must be good systems of research and audit in place both to identify where development is needed and to evaluate the efficacy of development projects already in progress. METHODS: We performed a MEDLINE search of publications between 1980 and 2010 using the search terms 'head injuries/craniocerebral trauma/neurotrauma' AND 'developing world/developing nations'. Information was extracted and compared between publications using our local head injury evaluation and audit database (OxHEAD) as a quality standard. RESULTS: The issue of traumatic brain injury management in low-income countries is under-represented in the international literature relative to the scale of the problem. However, epidemiological data is generally better reported than data relating to in-hospital care and follow-up which suffers as a result of heterogeneous data collection and categorisation techniques. CONCLUSION: The use of standardised scoring systems and outcome measures is likely to improve the comparability of data between studies. A multicentre collaborative approach towards data collection in resource-limited settings may be the most efficient and productive strategy for future research.

Language: en