Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
ABSTRACT
Background Head injury is common, and the risk of
subsequent disability and death is high. Increased risk of
death years after injury might be explained by factors
associated with, but not a consequence of, the head
injury. This unique prospective study investigates
mortality over 13 years after injury.
Methods A cohort of n767 with head injury was
compared with two case control groups, matched for
age, gender and deprivation, and in one control group,
matched for duration of hospital admission following
(non-head) injury.
Results Two-fifths of the head injury cohort had died.
The death rate (30.99 per 1000 per year) was much
higher than in community controls (13.72 per 1000 per
year). More than 1 year after injury, the death rate in
younger (15e54 years) adults was much higher than in
community controls (17.36 vs 2.36 per 1000 per year)
whereas in older adults the difference was more
marginal (61.47 vs 42.36). Death rate was elevated after
mild and after more severe head injury, including in
younger adults after mild head injury (14.82 per 1000 per
year mild head injury vs 2.21 community). Female gender
and greater deprivation were not associated with
increased death rates after head injury. Late after injury,
deaths occurred from the same main causes as for the
general population.
Conclusion Head injury is associated with increased
vulnerability to death from a variety of causes for at least
13 years after hospital admission. There is a need to
understand how head injury influences mortality,
particularly in younger adults and after mild head injury.
INTRODUCTION
Head injury accounts for the majority of trauma
deaths in young adults.1 Previous work has largely
focused on early mortality during hospital admission or in the rst year after head injury, where
a high death rate in those with severe head injury is
well recognised.2e4 Some suggest that the risk of
death continues to be raised thereafter but this is
not a consistent nding.4e8 A denitive view is
lacking because of important methodological
shortcomings in existing studies.1 8 These include
limitations associated with retrospective study
design, potential biases from recruitment, including
the use of unrepresentative samples from clinic or
rehabilitation populations, military casualties or
specic databases, or where the sample was
restricted by age or severity of brain injury. These
limitations may prevent agreement about factors
that might be associated with survival such as
gender and age at injury and with potential
consequences of head injury such as self-harm.4e25
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2011;82:931e935. doi:10.1136/jnnp.2010.222232
METHODS
Design
A comparison of cumulative death rates between
a cohort admitted to hospital after a head injury
and two case control groups was conducted. The
rst control group was hospitalised for an injury
other than head injury. The second was a community control group. Control groups were matched
to the head injury cohort for age, gender and
deprivation; the other injury group was, in addition, matched for duration of hospital admission
and admission date. Information collected in head
injury survivors at follow-up 1 year after injury was
considered in relation to survival outcome.
Setting
The head injury group was recruited from people
admitted with a head injury to the ve general
hospitals in Greater Glasgow. Survival outcome and
cause of death were ascertained 13 years after
admission from the General Register Ofce for
Scotland (GROS). Previous reports describe outcome
in this cohort at 1 and 5e7 years after injury.7 27 28
Participants
The Hospitalised Head Injury Study identied 2995
people admitted to a general hospital with a head
injury between February 1995 and February 1996.
Head injuries were identied by frequent visits by
research workers to hospitals and by collaboration
with hospital staff; in this way bias inherent in
diagnostic coding inaccuracies was minimised.27
The original cohort that was selected for followup included all severe and moderate cases and
a random sample of those with head injuries of
mild and unclassied severity.27 Exclusions were
not made on the basis of age. In this way the cohort
selected for follow-up was able to represent the full
range of severity of injury of hospital admissions
with head injury over a 12 month period.
931
Research paper
Quantitative variables
Early and late effects of injury are distinguished by reporting
outcome at 1 and 2e13 years. Age was an important determinant of outcome 7 years after injury.7 We subdivided age as #54
versus >54. These cut-offs were adopted on the basis of cut-offs
used by the GROS in data published by them and used in our
earlier work. Comparisons are made with GROS statistics for
the Greater Glasgow or Scottish populations for 2002 (the
midpoint of the 13 year follow-up) because the community
control group was matched with the head injury group and
therefore differs from the general population. Data on variables
pertinent only to the head injury cohort were obtained from the
existing research database, which in turn was obtained by
research workers from hospital records and interview during
admission to hospital at the study onset and at the 1 year
follow-up.
Table 1
Parameter
Levels
Head injury
(n[757)
Gender
Male
Female
Mean (SD)
1
2
3
4
5
602
155
43.4
40
32
48
89
463
Age (years)
SIMD 2006 (quintile)*
(79.5%)
(20.5%)
(20.9)
(6.0%)
(4.8%)
(7.1%)
(13.2%)
(68.9%)
Other injury
controls
(n[757)
Community
controls
(n[757)
603
154
43.8
44
31
58
101
435
603
154
44.4
51
63
57
126
454
(79.7%)
(20.3%)
(20.8)
(6.6%)
(4.6%)
(8.7%)
(15.1%)
(65.0%)
(79.7%)
(20.3%)
(20.9)
(6.8%)
(8.4%)
(7.6%)
(16.8%)
(60.5%)
RESULTS
Participants
Of the 767 cases in the original head injury cohort, 99% were
successfully linked to survival outcome by ISD. The 10 cases
that were not linked and their corresponding matched controls
were omitted. Hence analyses are based on three groups each of
757. The control groups were comparable for age, gender and for
deprivation on SIMD 2006 (see table 1).
Main findings
In the head injury cohort, 305/757 (40.3%) people had died
within 13 years of injury. The proportion of deaths was higher
in the head injury than in other injury (215; 28.2%) or
community (135; 19.0%) groups (gure 1). This remained the
case beyond the early period in year 1 where mortality was
particularly high (deaths after year 1: 229, 33.6%; 168, 23.7%;
116, 15.7%, respectively; log rank test, c265.35, df2,
p<0.0001). For other injury controls the death rate was higher
than for community controls.
The rate of death in the community control group over the
13 year period (13.72 per 1000 per year) was similar to that in
45%
40%
Cumulative frequency
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
10
12
14
Time (years)
Head Injury _____
Statistical methods
Cumulative death rates during follow-up are summarised by
KaplaneMeier estimates for each group. Within each study
932
Research paper
controls and in younger than in older injury patients, particularly in the head injury group. More than 1 year after head or
other injury, death rates were lower, and for older adults were
closer to the rates for community controls and Greater Glasgow
and Scottish populations. For younger adults more than 1 year
after injury, death rates were higher for head injury (OR 9.40;
95% CI 5.35 to 16.50) and other injury (OR 4.32; 95% CI 2.40 to
7.80) groups compared with community controls. The death
rate after head injury was higher than other injury (OR 2.17;
95% CI 1.50 to 3.14) (multiple logistic regression adjusting for
gender and SIMD scores).
Variable
Head injury
Age
Gender
Male
Female
SIMD 2006 score
Age
Gender
Male
Female
SIMD 2006 score
Age
Gender
Male
Female
SIMD 2006 score
Other injury
control
Community
control
Alive at
13 years*
Dead at
13 yearsy
OR for deathy
(95% CI)
32.8 (14.6)
59.0 (18.9)
376
76
46.1
35.9
(62.5)
(49.0)
(22.8)
(15.9)
226
79
44.5
63.7
(37.5)
(51.0)
(22.1)
(18.2)
450
92
45.1
38.7
(74.6)
(59.7)
(22.8)
(17.6)
153
62
40.5
70.3
(25.4)
(40.3)
(22.7)
(14.2)
507 (84.1)
115 (74.7)
41.3 (22.9)
96 (15.9)
39 (25.3)
43.0 (23.4)
ORs and confidence limits are from multiple logistic regression within each study group.
*Mean and SD except for gender, where number and percentage alive or dead are stated.
yORs for gender are for female versus male; for age are per 5 additional years; and for
SIMD are per 5 additional points.
SIMD, Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.
the Glasgow population aged over 14 in 2002 (14.88 per 1000 per
year). Death rate in the head injury group (30.99 per 1000 per
year) was more than twice that for community controls or for
the Glasgow population.
Rates of death per year, per 1000 people in younger and older adults
Deaths in year 1
Age
15e54 years
>54 years
Overall
15e54 years
>54 years
Overall
Head injury
Other injury control
Community control
Greater Glasgow 2002
Scotland 2002
30.99 (25.07e31.09)
21.85 (17.15, 22.47)
13.72 (10.97, 15.46)
14.88
13.85
Reference groups for Greater Glasgow and Scotland are from the General Register Office for Scotland. In parentheses are 95% CIs for the number of deaths per 1000 per year.
933
Research paper
Table 4 Primary causes of death per 1000 people per year for Greater Glasgow in 2002 and for each
group 13 years after study onset
Cause of death
Greater
Glasgow
Circulatory
Neoplasms
Respiratory
Digestive
Mental/behavioural
External
(Self-harm)
(Undetermined)
(Drug related)
(Other external)
Other
4.61
3.34
1.89
0.44
0.53
0.51
0.13
0.06
0.15
0.00
1.01
Deaths at 13 years
Community control
Other injury
Head injury
6.40
2.54
2.03
0.71
0.71
0.51
0.20
0.00
0.00
0.30
0.81
7.42
3.45
3.76
1.73
1.63
2.64
0.91
0.20
0.30
1.22
1.42
9.45
4.17
4.17
2.85
2.54
5.89
0.51
1.22
0.81
3.35
2.44
(4.96,
(1.65,
(1.25,
(0.29,
(0.29,
(0.17,
(0.02,
(0.00,
(0.00,
(0.06,
(0.35,
8.09)
3.72)
3.12)
1.46)
1.46)
1.18)
0.73)
0.37)
0.37)
0.89)
1.59)
(5.87,
(2.41,
(2.66,
(1.01,
(0.93,
(1.74,
(0.42,
(0.02,
(0.06,
(0.63,
(0.78,
9.21)
4.78)
5.13)
2.75)
2.62)
3.84)
1.73)
0.73)
0.89)
2.12)
2.37)
(7.72,
(3.01,
(3.01,
(1.90,
(1.65,
(4.51,
(0.17,
(0.63,
(0.35,
(2.32,
(1.57,
11.41)
5.60)
5.60)
4.08)
3.72)
7.53)
1.18)
2.12)
1.59)
4.67)
3.60)
In parentheses are 95% CIs for the number of deaths per 1000 per year.
DISCUSSION
Main findings
More than 40% of young people and adults admitted to hospital
in Glasgow after a head injury were dead 13 years later. This
stark nding is not explained by age, gender or deprivation
characteristics. As might be expected following an injury, the
highest rate of death occurred in the rst year after head injury.
However, risk of death remained high for at least a further
12 years when, for example, death was 2.8 times more likely
after head injury than for community controls. Admission for
non-head injury was also associated with a greater late risk of
mortality but after head injury the risk of death was even higher.
However, this nding does imply that factors associated with
risk of injury in general or the consequences of an injury are
related to longevity and emphasises the importance of comparison groups in studies of this kind. A second major nding is that
in comparison with controls, younger adults are at greater risk of
death after head injury, whereas for older adults, the risk relative
to controls is marginal more than a year after injury. Thirdly, the
rate of death is elevated even after a mild head injury and
especially in younger adults.
Research paper
injury was classied as mild by the Glasgow Coma Scale, death
rate was more than twice as high as in community controls.
Admission to hospital for injury (or factors associated with
admission) contributed to a poorer survival outcome. Poorer
survival outcome after head injury was related to factors associated with lifestyle prior to the injury (physical limitations,
habitual alcohol excess and living alone) and to a history of
mental health problems, as also reported elsewhere.20 23
The particularly high rate of death in younger adults is
important. Thirteen years after injury the death rate in those
aged 15e54 years was more than six times higher than in
community controls and this was not an artefact of gender or
deprivation. Factors associated with hospital admission are
relevant, but when controlling for this in addition the death rate
remained more than twice as high in the head injury than in the
other injury group. Beyond the early period of up to 1 year after
injury, the death rate in those aged over 54 years did not exceed
that found in community controls. The reason for greater
vulnerability in younger adults is unclear but requires further
consideration, especially given the particularly high risk of head
injury in younger adults27 together with economic concerns over
work force planning and demographic trends towards an ageing
population.30
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
Funding The 13 year follow-up was funded by the Chief Scientist Office (CZG/2/397).
The original prospective study was also funded by the Chief Scientist Office
(K/OPR/2/2/D229).
26.
27.
Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of the NHS Greater
Glasgow and Clyde Research Ethics Committee (08/S0710/82).
28.
Contributors TMMM was the primary investigator for the follow-up study and took
a lead role in writing the manuscript. GMT was the primary investigator for the original
prospective study and commented at all stages in the follow-up project. CJW
provided statistical advice and analysed the data. ES was the research worker on the
follow-up project and contributed to the manuscript.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
29.
30.
935
Copyright of Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry is the property of BMJ Publishing Group and its
content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.