Objective: To evaluate the cognitive and behavioral disturbances related to return to work (RTW) in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) with the application of a differentiated outcome scale.
Design: Longitudinal cohort study.
Setting: Level I trauma center.
Participants: Adults (N=434) with TBI of various severity.
Interventions: Not applicable.
Main outcome measures: Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS-E), Differentiated Outcome Scale (DOS), and RTW.
Results: Patients encountered problems in the physical (40%), cognitive (62%), behavioral (55%), and social domains (49%) of the DOS, with higher frequency related to severity of injury. Even those with mild TBI experienced cognitive (43%) and behavioral problems (33%). Patients with good recovery (58%) according to the GOS-E experienced problems in 1 or more domains of the DOS. Half the patients were able to resume previous vocational activities completely, although 1 in 3 experienced cognitive or behavioral problems. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, the cognitive (odds ratio [OR], 10.548; confidence interval [CI], 5.99-18.67), behavioral (OR, 2.648; CI, 1.63-4.29), and physical domains (OR, 2.763; CI, 1.60-4.78) were significant (P<.01) predictors of RTW. For subcategories of TBI, the cognitive domain was predictive for RTW in those with moderate and severe TBI, whereas both the cognitive and behavioral domains were predictive for RTW in those with mild TBI.
Conclusions: With application of a more detailed outcome scale, cognitive and behavioral impairments interfering with RTW were present in a substantial part of patients with TBI in the chronic phase after injury. More research is needed exploring the cognitive and behavioral outcome in different categories of injury severity separately.