Validation of ‘reported concussion’ within a national health survey

ABSTRACT

Setting: The Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) is a national cross-sectional health survey, which has collected information on injuries serious enough to limit normal activity.

Objective: To assess the construct and discriminant validity of reporting ‘concussion or other brain injury’ in the CCHS as the respondents’ most serious injury.

Methods: Construct validity was assessed by describing the injury profile. Discriminant validity was assessed by examining differences between those reporting concussion or other brain injury, and either: respondents not reporting brain injury (population control); or respondents reporting orthopaedic injuries (orthopaedic control).

Results: In total, 1,852 of the 682,455 eligible CCHS respondents (≥12 years) reported a concussion or other brain injury within the prior year, a population annual incidence of 0.29%. Those reporting concussion or other brain injury were younger and male (p < 0.001), with an injury acquired by falling (p < 0.001) or sport or physical exercise (p < 0.001). Most (78.4%) who reported concussions or other brain injuries received medical attention from a health professional within 48 hours of their injury. The reported injury profiles appear to differ from the population controls and those reporting orthopaedic injuries.

Conclusions: The report of ‘concussion or other brain injury’ in the CCHS may be a valid source of population-based traumatic brain injury epidemiological data.

KEYWORDS:

• Brain concussion
• brain injury
• population-based
• validity

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada RDC Access Granting Committee (grant number 14-SSHDAL-3854) and the assistance of the staff at the Atlantic Research Data Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.

Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

Qualifier

The analysis presented in this paper was conducted at the Atlantic Research Data Centre, which is part of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN). The services and activities provided by the Atlantic Research Data Centre are made possible by the financial or in-kind support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Statistics Canada, and Dalhousie University. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent the CRDCN’s or those of its partners.

Notes

^1. Data with a coefficient of variation (CV) from 16.6% to 33.3% are to be used with caution.