• Dana L Noffsinger, Lee Ann Wurster, Jane Cooley, Lindsay Buchanan, Krista K Wheeler, Junxin Shi, Henry Xiang, and Jonathan I Groner.
• Trauma Program, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Nationwide Children's Hospital, 700 Children's Drive, Columbus, OH 43205, United States of America; Center for Pediatric Trauma Research, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, 700 Children's Drive, Columbus, OH 43205, United States of America. Electronic address: Dana.Noffsinger@nationwidechildrens.org.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2019 Sep 1; 37 (9): 167216761672-1676.

BackgroundAdolescent trauma patients are reported to have increased incidence of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, but previous studies have included inadequate screening of the intended populations. A Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center achieved a 94% rate of AOD screening. We hypothesized that a positive AOD screening result is associated with males, increasing age, lower socioeconomic status, violent injury mechanism, higher Injury Severity Score (ISS), lower GCS, need for operation and increased hospital length of stay.MethodsAfter achieving high rates of screening among admitted trauma alert patients 12-17 years old, we evaluated patients presenting during 2014-2015. Chi-square tests were used to compare the percentage of patients with positive test results across sociodemographic, injury severity measures and patient outcomes.ResultsThree hundred and one patients met criteria for AOD screening during the study period. Ninety-four percent of these patients received screening and 18% were positive. Males (21.4%) were more often positive than females (11.6%). Increasing age was directly correlated with AOD use. Race was associated with a positive screen. Black patients more often had positive screens (40.9%), as compared with White patients (13.8%) and other races (23.5%). Patients with commercial insurance (6.6%) were less likely to be positive than those with no insurance (19.0%) or Medicaid (30.9%). Lower median household income was associated with positive AOD screening. Patients with violent injury mechanisms were more likely to screen positive (36.2%) than those with non-violent mechanisms (18.0%). No statistical differences were found with injury severity scores, the need for operation, or hospital length of stay.ConclusionsWith near universal screening of adolescent trauma alert admissions, positive AOD results were more often found with males, increasing age, lower socioeconomic status, and violent injury mechanism.Level Of EvidenceLevel III, Retrospective comparative study without negative criteria.Study TypePrognostic.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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