Symptom complaints following combat-related traumatic brain injury:

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA532921&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Symptom complaints following combat-related traumatic brain injury:
Relationship to traumatic brain injury severity and posttraumatic stress
disorder


HEATHER G. BELANGER , TRACY KRETZMER , RODNEY D. VANDERPLOEG , and
LOUIS M. FRENCH
Patients with a history of mild ( n = 134) or moderate-to-severe ( n = 91) TBI were asked to complete the Neurobehavioral Symptom Inventory (NSI) and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist. Consistent with prior research, signifi cantly more postconcussion symptoms were endorsed by the mild group. After controlling for age, time since injury, and mechanism of injury, TBI severity continued to be signifi cantly related to postconcussion complaints on the NSI. However after controlling for these same variables, along with posttraumatic stress disorder symptom severity, there no longer were differences between the TBI severity groups. That is, patients with mild TBI did not endorse signifi cantly more complaints (adjusted mean = 22.4) than the moderate-to-severe group (adjusted mean = 21.8). These fi ndings suggest that much
of the symptom complaints in mildly injured patients may be due to emotional distress. ( JINS , 2009, 16, 194?199.)