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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between self-reported mood symptoms and severity of presenting concussion symptoms in an adult sports and non-sports post-concussion population.
BACKGROUND: Past studies have identified a relationship between pre-morbid and concurrent anxiety and depression and number, severity, and duration of postconcussion symptoms.
DESIGN/METHODS: Using our structured clinical documentation support toolkit for concussion patients, we analyzed previously collected discrete standardized data. Each patient with a confirmed mTBI diagnosis by the clinician, reported mood symptoms on the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) scale and Center for Epidemiology Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. Rivermead Post-concussion Symptoms Questionnaire (RPQ) was self-reported for non-sports concussion patients and the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) symptom checklist was self-reported for sports concussion patients. RPQ or SCAT scores were correlated with GAD-7 and CES-D scores at initial visit. Cohorts were stratified by gender and age decile.
RESULTS: RPQ score was weakly correlated with GAD-7 scores and peaked at 0.71 for males in their 40s and 0.69 for females in their 50s. RPQ was weakly correlated with CES-D for males: corr = 0.65 for all age groups, and females around 0.50, peaking at 0.76 for females in their 50s. For SCAT and GAD-7, males had a stronger correlation than females (0.58-0.21) in their 20s, while females exhibited a stronger correlation for SCAT and CES-D than males (0.63-0.23) in their 20s.
CONCLUSIONS: Correlations were found between symptom scores and mood scores. Strongest correlations were found for non-sports mTBI patients between RPQ scores and GAD-7 scores in males in their 40s and females in their 50s, and between RPQ scores and CES-D scores in females in their 50s. This analysis lends support to the relationship between mood symptoms and intensity of somatic concussion symptoms following injury and may encourage clinicians to discuss mental health treatment or resources when appropriate.
Language: en |