Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Characteristics and Symptoms in Preschool Children: How Do They Differ to School Age Children? A Multicenter Prospective Observational Study.

To investigate if preschool children differ to school age children with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) with respect to injury causes, clinical presentation, and medical management. A secondary analysis of a dataset from a large, prospective and multisite cohort study on TBI in children aged 0-18 years, the Australian Paediatric Head Injury Rules Study. Nine pediatric emergency departments (ED) and 1 combined adult and pediatric ED located across Australia and New Zealand. 7080 preschool aged children (2-5 years) were compared with 5251 school-age children (6-12 years) with mild TBI (N= (N=12,331) Clinical report form on medical symptoms, injury causes, and management. Preschool children were less likely to be injured with a projectile than school age children (P <.001). Preschool children presented with less: loss of consciousness (P <.001), vomiting (P <.001), drowsiness (P=.002), and headache (P <.001), and more irritability and agitation (P =.003), than school-age children in the acute period after mild TBI. Preschool children were less likely to have neuroimaging of any kind (P <.001) or to be admitted for observation than school age children (P <.001). Our large prospective study has demonstrated that preschool children with mild TBI experience a different acute symptom profile to older children. There are significant clinical implications with symptoms post-TBI used in medical management to aid decisions on neuroimaging and post-acute intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]