Post-traumatic amnesia: a scoping review & content analysis of behavioral disturbances

ABSTRACT

Objective

The aim of this scoping review was to identify behavioral disturbances exhibited by patients in post-traumatic amnesia (PTA). While behavioral disturbances are common in PTA, research into their presentation and standardized measures for their assessment are limited.

Design

The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021268275). A scoping review of databases was performed according to pre-determined criteria on 29 July 2021 and updated on 13 July 2022. A conventional content analysis was used to examine and categorize behavioral disturbances.

Results

Thirty papers met the inclusion criteria, of which 27 reported observations and/or scores obtained on behavioral scales, and 3 on clinician interviews and surveys. None focused exclusively on children. Agitation was the most frequently assessed behavior, and Agitated Behavior Scale was the most used instrument. Content analysis, however, bore eight broad behavioral categories: disinhibition, agitation, aggression, lability, lethargy/low mood, perceptual disturbances/psychotic symptoms, personality change and sleep disturbances.

Conclusion

Our study revealed that while standardized assessments of behavior of patients in PTA are often limited to agitation, clinical descriptions include a range of behavioral disturbances. Our study highlights a significant gap in the systematic assessment of a wide range of behavioral disturbances observed in PTA.

KEYWORDS:

• Traumatic brain injury
• behavior
• post-traumatic amnesia
• review
• assessment
• content analysi

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02699052.2024.2304865

Additional information

Funding

No funding was provided for this study.