Which elements of hospital-based clinical decision support tools for the assessment and management of children with head injury can be adapted for use by paramedics in prehospital care? A systematic mapping review and narrative synthesis.

OBJECTIVE

Hospital-based clinical decision tools support clinician decision-making when a child presents to the emergency department with a head injury, particularly regarding CT scanning. However, there is no decision tool to support prehospital clinicians in deciding which head-injured children can safely remain at scene. This study aims to identify clinical decision tools, or constituent elements, which may be adapted for use in prehospital care.

DESIGN

Systematic mapping review and narrative synthesis.

DATA SOURCES: Searches were conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL and AMED.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods or systematic review research that included a clinical decision support tool for assessing and managing children with head injury.

DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: We systematically identified all in-hospital clinical decision support tools and extracted from these the clinical criteria used in decision-making. We complemented this with a narrative synthesis.

RESULTS

Following de-duplication, 887 articles were identified. After screening titles and abstracts, 710 articles were excluded, leaving 177 full-text articles. Of these, 95 were excluded, yielding 82 studies. A further 14 studies were identified in the literature after cross-checking, totalling 96 analysed studies. 25 relevant in-hospital clinical decision tools were identified, encompassing 67 different clinical criteria, which were grouped into 18 categories.

CONCLUSION

Factors that should be considered for use in a clinical decision tool designed to support paramedics in the assessment and management of children with head injury are: signs of skull fracture; a large, boggy or non-frontal scalp haematoma neurological deficit; Glasgow Coma Score less than 15; prolonged or worsening headache; prolonged loss of consciousness; post-traumatic seizure; amnesia in older children; non-accidental injury; drug or alcohol use; and less than 1 year old. Clinical criteria that require further investigation include mechanism of injury, clotting impairment/anticoagulation, vertigo, length of time of unconsciousness and number of vomits.