FROM JAMA PEDIATRICS
Children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI) might be at increased risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) years after the injury, a prospective cohort study published March 19 shows.
Severe TBI was associated with significantly increased risk of new onset ADHD versus controls in the study, which was based on parent-completed assessments done as late as 6.8 years after the initial injury, according to results presented in JAMA Pediatrics.
Although children with severe TBI were at highest risk, those with less severe TBI had about twice the risk of developing ADHD, compared with control subjects who had no brain injury, the study results suggest.
Taken together, the findings suggest a need for long-term monitoring for attention problems, wrote investigator Megan E. Narad, PhD, of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and her co-authors.
“Physicians and other clinicians should continue to be vigilant in monitoring attention problems in patients with a history of brain injury, even if it has been a number of years since the injury, the injury was moderate in nature, or the patient experienced a predominantly positive recovery,” Dr. Narad and her colleagues wrote.
The results were based on long-term analysis of 187 children who were hospitalized for TBI or orthopedic injury between the ages of 3 and 7 years. That group included 81 children with TBI and 106 with orthopedic injury.
Parents completed assessments soon after the injury, then again at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 3.4 years, and 6.8 years afterward, according to the study.
Over the full follow-up period, 48 children (25.7%) met the investigators’ definition of “secondary ADHD,” or onset of ADHD symptoms after an injury. They found that compared with orthopedic injury, the severe TBI was associated with new ADHD (hazard ratio, 3.62; 95% confidence interval, 1.59-8.26), the investigators reported.
In patients with mild or moderate TBI, associations with new onset ADHD did not meet the statistical significance threshol. However, compared with the orthopedic injury group, the risk for ADHD in TBI severity subgroups were up to 4 times higher.
This is not the first study showing an elevated risk of ADHD in TBI patients, but .
“Although most children with severe TBI who developed secondary ADHD did so within the first 18 months after injury, a portion of those with complicated mild and moderate TBI demonstrated new onset of secondary ADHD at the final two assessments, highlighting the importance of continued monitoring even years after TBI,” Dr. Narad and her colleagues wrote.
The study was funded by several sources, including the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the state of Ohio’s Emergency Medical Services.
Dr. Narad reported no relevant disclosures. Other study authors reported disclosures related to Akili Interactive Labs, Multi-Health Systems, Optimal Medicine, and IXICO.
SOURCE: Narad ME et al. JAMA Pediatr. 2018 Mar 19. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.5746.