A longitudinal, controlled study of patient complaints following treated mild traumatic brain injury

This study provided 3-month follow-up data to a previous paper that compared symptom complaints of patients with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) with those of non-injured control participants within 1 month of injury. The 110 MTBI patients and 118 control participants were group-matched on age, gender, education level, and socioeconomic status. As a group, MTBI patients no longer endorsed significantly more symptoms (M=14.09, S.D.=10.77) than did the control group (M=12.56, S.D.=8.46, P=.232). Only 3 of the 43 queried symptoms were endorsed by significantly more (Bonferroni-corrected P<.00116) MTBI patients than controls. Using the same Bonferroni-corrected criteria, 10 of the 43 symptoms were endorsed at a significantly higher severity level by MTBI patients. Overall, the treated MTBI group’s symptom complaints diminished from baseline to 3 months post-injury, with relatively few differences remaining between the two groups.