MaTOMS: A Feasibility Study Into Collecting Major Trauma Outcomes

Major Trauma Outcome Measures Study (MaTOMS): A feasibility Study into using outcome measures in major trauma patients. At present patients who suffer major trauma (multiple, serious injuries that could result in death or serious disability e.g. serious head injuries and multiple fractures), are now able to survive due to advances in modern medicine. Unfortunately they may be left with long term disabilities such as problems with performing day to day activities. We currently do not know how bad these disabilities are or have any way of judging any differences between the outcomes of different hospitals. MaTOMS is a feasibility study taking place in one hospital, the John Radcliffe Hospital which aims to help answer these questions by developing a set of structured interviews that can be used after an injury to find out about patient outcomes. It will identify how difficult or easy it is to collect the data and information outlined in this project, and whether the types of data and information collected as part of the interviews are a good indicator of a patient's outcomes. Over 30 months the study will recruit up to 100 patients who are aged 2 years and over who have been admitted following major trauma. Major trauma will be defined as a score of 9 or more on the Injury Severity Score, a widely used system to stratify those who suffer an injury. Those who agree to take part following a consent process will undergo structured interviews both in hospital and twice via telephone in the year following discharge. Some participants will take part in an additional interview either asking about their experience of answering the questions during the structured interview or exploring their experience and feelings about their traumatic injury to see if our structured interviews are missing any aspect of their experience. The main objectives for this feasibility study is to test the feasibility of routine collection of outcome measurement data following major trauma.