Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

Background: Knowledge of the substance use outcomes on clinical-hospital characteristics in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be useful in preventing their long term complications. Therefore, this research was conducted to study interaction effects of TBI and substance use on Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS). Methods: 185 TBI patients with mean age 37.46±17.42 year in two groups of with (n=35) and without substance use (n=150) in emergency & neurosurgery and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ward of Rasht Poursina hospital selected by consecutive sampling and were evaluated using GCS on admission and 72 hour later and GOS. Results: multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that there is significant difference between the two groups of TBI patients with and without substance use according to GCS on admission (P=0.006) and 72 hour (P=0.005). In the meantime, the independent t-test results also showed that TBI patients with substance use have lower GOS than front group (P=0.038). Conclusion: Present study highlighted be serious the effects of substance use in reduction GCS and GOS scores of TBI patients. The clinical implications of this study are discussed.