Background and purpose: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a public health problem around the world. The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and Full Outline of Unresponsiveness (FOUR) score are the most common tools in this patients. This study aimed to assess time-related GCS and FOUR scores evaluation in predicting outcome in TBI patients.

Materials and methods: The present prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 TBI patients admitted to an intensive care unit. GCS and FOUR scores were evaluated in four times, including the first hour, and then 24, 48, and 72 hours later. For the analysis of data, SPSS V. 22 and MedCalc v13 were used. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of GCS and FOUR score were evaluated to predict the patients' outcome. Patients' outcome was measured two weeks after hospitalization and for patients who were discharged earlier than this time the evaluation was done at the time of discharge using modified Rankin Scale (mRS).

Results: Sensitivity and specificity of the FOUR score in predicting the outcomes were 80% and 84.4% at first stage, 83.6% and 92.2% at second stage, 83.2% and 92.2% at third stage, and 96.4% and 79.7% at fourth stage, respectively. These values for the GCS were 81.8% and 90.6% at first stage, 87.3% and 93.8% at second stage, 85.5% and 93.8% at third stage, and 87.3% and 93.8% at fourth stage, respectively

Conclusion: Time-related GCS and FOUR scores evaluation did not have a considerable effect on predicting the outcome in this patients.