Trauma research in the Nordic countries, 1995–2018 – a systematic review

Trauma is a major cause of mortality and reduced quality of life. Most trauma-related research originates from trauma centres, and there are limited available data regarding the treatment of trauma patients throughout the Nordic countries. These countries differ from economically similar countries due to their cold climate, mix of rural and urban areas, and the long distances separating many residents from a trauma centre. Research funders and the general public expect trauma research to focus on all links in the treatment chain. Here we conducted a systematic review to assess the amount of trauma-related research from the Nordic countries between January 1995 and April 2018, and the distribution of this research among different countries and different parts of the trauma treatment chain.

A systematic literature search was conducted in Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Scopus. We included studies concerning the trauma population from Nordic countries, and published between January 1995 and April 2018. Two independent reviewers screened titles and abstracts, and performed data extraction from full-text articles.

The literature search yielded 5117 titles and abstracts, of which 844 full-text articles were included in our analysis. During this period, the annual number of publications increased. Publications were equally distributed among Norway, Sweden, and Denmark in terms of numbers; however, Norway had more publications relative to inhabitants. There were fewer overall publications from Finland and Iceland. We identified mostly cohort studies and very few randomized controlled trials. Studies focused on the level of care were predominantly epidemiological studies. Research at the pre-hospital level was three-fold more frequent than research on other elements of the trauma treatment chain.

The rate of publications in the field of trauma care in the Nordic countries has increased over recent years. However, several parts of the trauma treatment chain are still unexplored and most of the available studies are observational studies with low research evidence.