Analysis of US Veterans Health Administration comprehensive evaluations for traumatic brain injury in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans

Abstract

Objective: To describe neurobehavioural symptoms in Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans evaluated for traumatic brain injury (TBI) through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) TBI screening and evaluation programme.

Design: An observational study based on VHA administrative data for all veterans who underwent TBI Comprehensive Evaluation between October 2007 and June 2010.

Results: 55,070 predominantly white, non-Hispanic, male Veterans with a positive TBI screen had comprehensive TBI evaluations completed during the study period. Moderate-to-severe symptoms were common in the entire sample, both in those with and without a clinician-diagnosed TBI. However, the odds of reporting symptoms of this severity were significantly higher in those diagnosed with TBI compared to those without a TBI diagnosis, with odds ratios ranging from 1.35-2.21. TBI-specialty clinicians believed that in the majority of diagnosed TBI cases both behavioural health conditions and TBI contributed to patients' symptom presentation.

Conclusions: The VHAs TBI screening and evaluation process is identifying individuals with ongoing neurobehavioural symptoms. Moderate-to-severe symptoms were more prevalent in veterans with TBI-specialty clinician determined TBI. However, the high rate of symptom reporting also present in individuals without a confirmed TBI suggest that symptom aetiology may be multi-factorial in nature.