Key clinical point: Sex differences in recovery time were observed in pediatric patients with mild traumatic brain injury or concussion, with girls and women taking longer to recover than boys and men. Patients with comorbidities of emotional distress (i.e., anxiety or depression) and migraine recovered more slowly, independent of sex.
Major finding: Girls and women experienced slower recovery (persistent symptoms after injury: week 4, 81.6% vs. 71.2%; week 8, 58.9% vs. 44.3%; and week 12, 42.6% vs. 30.2%; P = .01) and were more likely to have preexisting anxiety (26.7% vs. 18.7%) vs. boys and men. Patients with a history of emotional distress (persistent symptoms after injury: week 4, 80.9% vs. 75.6%; week 8, 57.8% vs. 50.5%; and week 12, 48.0% vs. 33.3%; P = .009) and migraine (persistent symptoms after injury: week 4, 87.3% vs. 73.9%; week 8, 67.7% vs. 49.0%; and week 12, 55.7% vs. 33.2%; P = .001) recovered more slowly vs. those without.
Study details: A prospective cohort study of 600 pediatric patients (54% females, 72.5% adolescents) enrolled at multicenter concussion specialty clinics from the Four Corners Youth Consortium from December 2017 to July 2019.
Disclosures: The study was supported by funds from the UCLA Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Program, the Easton Clinic for Brain Health, the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center, Stan and Patti Silver, the Satterberg Foundation, and the Sports Institute at UW Medicine. The presenting author had no disclosures. Three coauthors reported various disclosures.
Source: Rosenbaum PE et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2020 Nov 2. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.21463.