Post-traumatic Headache After Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Association With Neurocognitive Outcomes.

Post-traumatic headache is common after pediatric traumatic brain injury and affects thousands of children every year, but little is known about how headache affects recovery after traumatic brain injury in other symptom domains. We aimed to determine the association between headache and other common symptoms after pediatric traumatic brain injury and explore whether subjective complaints of headache are associated with objective deficits on specialized neurocognitive testing. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of children ages 3-19 years following traumatic brain injury with a completed Sports Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) questionnaire. Post-traumatic headache was defined by a score more than 2 on the SCAT question for headache and define headache groups for comparison. In our cohort, we analyzed data from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System and the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, Second Edition (WASI-II). Headache was reported in 40 (33%) patients presenting for post-traumatic brain injury care among 121 pediatric traumatic brain injury patients and did not differ by injury severity. Median total SCAT symptom score in the headache group was 5-fold higher compared to patients without headache (median 45.5 vs 9;