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The Postconcussional Syndrome: Social Antecedents and Psychological Sequelae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

George Fenton ,
Roy McClelland ,
Anne Montgomery ,
Geraldine MacFlynn  and
William Rutherford
George Fenton
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Ninewells Hospital Medical School, Dundee DD1 9SN
Roy McClelland*
Affiliation:
Department of Mental Health, Whitla Medical Building, Belfast City Hospital, 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7BL
Anne Montgomery
Affiliation:
Holywell Hospital, 60 Steeple Road, Antrim BT41 2RJ
Geraldine MacFlynn
Affiliation:
The Mater Hospital, 47–51 Crumlin Road, Belfast BT14 6AR
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

The study consisted of a prospective investigation of 45 consecutively admitted patients who had sustained a mild head injury. In all cases the duration of post-traumatic amnesia was less than 24 hours. Head injury patients had an average of three adverse life events in the year preceding injury compared with 1.5 for controls. Using the PSE, 39% of the group were diagnosed psychiatric cases at six weeks after the injury. For cases the mean level of chronic social difficulties (3.3) was four times that for non-cases (0.8). Six months after injury, 28% of the head injury group had three or more symptoms. These chronic cases were on average ten years older than those whose symptoms had remitted. Chronic cases had, on average, three social difficulties, twice as many as found among those whose symptoms had remitted. The emergence and persistence of the postconcussional syndrome are associated with social adversity before the accident. While young men are most at risk of minor head injury, older women are most at risk of chronic sequelae.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 162 , Issue 4 , April 1993 , pp. 493 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1993 

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