Citation

Mannix R, O'Brien MJ, Meehan WP. Neurosurgery 2013; 73(1): 129-34; discussion 134.

Affiliation

1Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital 2Brain Injury Center, Boston Children's Hospital 3Sports Concussion Clinic, Division of Sports Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital 4The Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Congress of Neurological Surgeons)

DOI

10.1227/01.neu.0000429846.14579.41

PMID

23615100

Abstract

BACKGROUND:: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called for studies detailing the prevalence and burden of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in the outpatient clinical setting. OBJECTIVE:: To describe the prevalence of outpatient visits for minor head injury and compare the number of outpatient visits for minor head injury with the number of Emergency Department (ED) visits. METHODS:: This is a cross-sectional study of outpatient visits for minor head injuries from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). We examined outpatient visits for minor head injury between 2005 and 2009 and compared them to visits in the ED for the same diagnoses using simple survey weighted descriptive statistics. RESULTS:: In the five-year study period, there were 4,146,777 outpatient visits for minor head injury and 6,077,147 ED visits for minor head injury. In the outpatient setting, 14% of office-based visits and 21% of hospital-based visits referred patients for advanced imaging, while 63% of minor head injury patients in the ED underwent imaging. A return visit was arranged for 54% of minor head injury patients in office-based practices and 29% of patients in hospital-based clinics, while 67% of minor head injury patients were given instructions to follow-up after an ED visit. CONCLUSION:: More than 800,000 outpatient visits for minor head injury occur each year. The diagnostics and management associated with these visits are different than those seen in the ED setting.

Language: en