The clinicians in our study had a substantial level of agreement regarding most clinical criteria assessed in this large sample of patients with blunt head injury.
Objectives: To describe the availability of next-of-kin (NOK) for proxy consent over the 24-hour time period following presentation of major trauma patients to a Level I trauma center. Methods: The study was conducted by using a prospective, observational study design. Consecutive patients meeting predefined major trauma criteria during a threemonth study period were enrolled and followed until NOK were contacted, or up to 24 hours. Survival analysis was used to determine the probability of NOK contact during the 24-hour follow-up period. Results: Three hundred fifty (92%) of 382 subjects had NOK contacted during the follow-up period. The probabilities (95% confidence intervals [CIs]) of NOK contact at the time of arrival (t = 0) and 2, 4, 6, and 24 hours postpresentation were 0.25 (95% CI = 0.21 to 0.30), 0.68 (95% CI = 0.63 to 0.72), 0.77 (95% CI = 0.73 to 0.82), 0.80 (95% CI = 0.76 to 0.84), and 0.87 (95% CI = 0.84 to 0.90), respectively. The median time to contact was 40 minutes (95% CI = 27 to 54 min). Conclusions: One third of the trauma patients in this study did not have NOK available two hours following arrival in the emergency department. For time-critical research protocols, the time to NOK contact can significantly impact the ability to ensure prompt enrollment and treatment in clinical trials. Further studies are needed to assess the generalizability and consistency of these data.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.