Validation of the PECARN clinical decision rule for children with minor head trauma: a French multicenter prospective study.

Background: To date, the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) rule for identifying children who are at very low risk of clinically-important traumatic brain injuries after minor head trauma has not been validated prospectively in an independent population. Our goal was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the PECARN clinical decision rule in a French pediatric population in multiple clinical settings.

Methods: We conducted a multicenter, prospective, non-interventional cohort study of patients with minor head trauma who presented to three emergency departments in France.