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Norwegian trauma criteria: high overtriage

Evaluation of the trauma criteria from the Norwegian national trauma plan: an observational study from a regional trauma centre
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine · Added 31 May 2026

They tested whether Norway's new national trauma criteria accurately predicted ISS>15 injuries and met triage goals, and found overtriage of 81.1% and undertriage of 11.5%, with mechanism of injury criteria showing very poor positive predictive value.

Study type

Cohort

Design

Retrospective cohort from a regional trauma registry with manual prehospital record review

Participants

2,508 trauma registry patients, 384 with ISS >15

Main finding

Overtriage 81.1%, undertriage 11.5%; mechanism-of-injury criteria predicted ISS >15 in only 9 of 333 patients (overtriage 97.3%); removing MOI criteria except fall would eliminate 255 unnecessary trauma team activations.

Caveat

Single trauma centre, Norwegian system; findings may not transfer to Australian triage criteria

Bottom line

Context only

Learning goal

Weigh the value of mechanism-of-injury criteria in prehospital trauma triage against risks of overtriage and undertriage.

More

• Topic: Trauma
• Daily scan: 31 May 2026

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