“Long-Term Outcomes Associated With Traumatic Brain Injury in Childhood and Adolescence: A Nationwide Swedish Cohort Study of a Wide Range of Medical and Social Outcomes”, 2016-06-23 (; backlinks; similar):
Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of disability and mortality in children and young adults worldwide. It remains unclear, however, how TBI in childhood and adolescence is associated with adult mortality, psychiatric morbidity, and social outcomes.
Methods and Findings: In a Swedish birth cohort 1973–12198539ya of 1,143,470 individuals, we identified all those who had sustained at least one TBI (n = 104,290 or 9.1%) up to age 25 y and their unaffected siblings (n = 68,268) using patient registers. We subsequently assessed these individuals for the following outcomes using multiple national registries: disability pension, specialist diagnoses of psychiatric disorders and psychiatric inpatient hospitalization, premature mortality (before age 41 y), low educational attainment (not having achieved secondary school qualifications), and receiving means-tested welfare benefits. We used logistic and Cox regression models to quantify the association between TBI and specified adverse outcomes on the individual level. We further estimated population attributable fractions (PAF) for each outcome measure. We also compared differentially exposed siblings to account for unobserved genetic and environmental confounding. In addition to relative risk estimates, we examined absolute risks by calculating prevalence and Kaplan-Meier estimates. In complementary analyses, we tested whether the findings were moderated by injury severity, recurrence, and age at first injury (ages 0–4, 5–9, 6–10, 15–19, and 20–24 y).
TBI exposure was associated with elevated risks of impaired adult functioning across all outcome measures. After a median follow-up period of 8 y from age 26 y, we found that TBI contributed to absolute risks of over 10% for specialist diagnoses of psychiatric disorders and low educational attainment, ~5% for disability pension, and 2% for premature mortality. The highest relative risks, adjusted for sex, birth year, and birth order, were found for psychiatric inpatient hospitalization (adjusted relative risk [aRR] = 2.0; 95% CI: 1.9–2.0; 6,632 versus 37,095 events), disability pension (aRR = 1.8; 95% CI: 1.7–1.8; 4,691 versus 29,778 events), and premature mortality (aRR = 1.7; 95% CI: 1.6–1.9; 799 versus 4,695 events). These risks were only marginally attenuated when the comparisons were made with their unaffected siblings, which implies that the effects of TBI were consistent with a causal inference. A dose-response relationship was observed with injury severity. Injury recurrence was also associated with higher risks—in particular, for disability pension we found that recurrent TBI was associated with a 3× risk increase (aRR = 2.6; 95% CI: 2.4–2.8) compared to a single-episode TBI. Higher risks for all outcomes were observed for those who had sustained their first injury at an older age (ages 20–24 y) with more than 25% increase in relative risk across all outcomes compared to the youngest age group (ages 0–4 y). On the population level, TBI explained between 2%–6% of the variance in the examined outcomes.
Using hospital data underestimates milder forms of TBI, but such misclassification bias suggests that the reported estimates are likely conservative. The sibling-comparison design accounts for unmeasured familial confounders shared by siblings, including half of their genes. Thus, residual genetic confounding remains a possibility but will unlikely alter our main findings, as associations were only marginally attenuated within families.
Conclusion: Given our findings, which indicate potentially causal effects between TBI exposure in childhood and later impairments across a range of health and social outcomes, age-sensitive clinical guidelines should be considered and preventive strategies should be targeted at children and adolescents.
In a population-wide observational cohort, Seena Fazel and colleagues use a sibling-matched design to examine the burden of long-term outcomes associated with traumatic brain injury.
Author Summary: Why Was This Study Done?
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) constitutes the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in individuals under the age of 45 y globally.
Research on the long-term effects of TBI is limited to more severe injuries and medical outcomes.
There is uncertainty whether children and adolescents experiencing milder forms of TBI may have medical and social problems in adulthood.
What Did the Researchers Do and Find?:
We used national registers in Sweden covering 1.1 million individuals born between 1973–12198539ya
In the 9.1% who sustained at least one TBI before the age of 25 y, we examined later risk of six medical and social outcomes.
We compared TBI patients with their unaffected siblings in order to account for the possibility that the risk for these outcomes runs in families.
We found TBI consistently predicted later risk of premature mortality, psychiatric inpatient admission, psychiatric outpatient visits, disability pension, welfare recipiency, and low educational attainment in the sibling-comparison analyses, and the effects were stronger for those with greater injury severity, recurrence, and older age at first injury.
What Do These Findings Mean?:
Consideration needs to be given to review the cognitive, psychiatric, and social development all children and adolescents who sustain head injuries.
Guidelines should consider age-specific recommendations for follow-up.
The public health benefits of preventing TBIs should include social outcomes.