Symptom Complaints Following Combat-Related Traumatic Brain Injury: Relationship to Traumatic Brain Injury Severity and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

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, significantly 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 findings suggest that much of the symptom complaints in mildly injured patients may be due to emotional distress. JINS , 2009, 16, 194-199.