The behaviour of children one year after a head injury

Bibliography: leaves 117-128.This study examines the behavioural sequelae in 116 subjects aged between 5 and 14 years 1 year after a head injury. Subjects were selected from consecutive admissions to trauma units on the basis of neurological criteria. Severity of injury was graded according to duration of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA). There were 53 children in the Moderate group with PTA less than 24 hours; 37 children in the Severe group with PTA between 1 and 7 days and 26 children in the Very Severe group with PTA over 7 days. The head-injured subjects were matched for age, sex, ethnic group and socio-economic background with 37 Controls who had trauma not involving the head. There are two main objectives to this thesis. The first is to establish which of the behaviours present in the head-injured children at one year follow-up could be attributed to their head injury. This was achieved in two ways: By separating behaviours which presented for the first time in the post-traumatic period from those with a pre-traumatic origin and through the identification of other factors such as pre-morbid behaviour patterns and persistent psychosocial adversity which may have contributed to post-head injury behaviour patterns. The above two steps made it possible to determine the existence of a defined post-traumatic syndrome. The second main objective was simply to establish whether there was a dose-response relationship between the severity of the head injury and behavioural sequelae. The areas examined included physical complaints, developmental problems, activity levels, social problems, disturbances of mood and control, neurotic behaviour and mental symptoms