Traumatic brain injuries in paediatric patients: individual vs. team sports-related hospitalizations

ABSTRACT

Paediatric sport participation continues to increase in the United States, with a corresponding increase in sports-related concussions or traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). It is important to recognize which sports are at elevated risk and identify risk factors for hospital admission and length of stay (LOS). Paediatric patients (ages 5–18) from 2008 to 2014 were identified from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) National Inpatient Sample (NIS). Eight hundred and ninety-four patients included those who were hospitalized with a TBI resulting from participation in an individual (451 patients) or team (443 patients) sport. We evaluated the differences in LOS and total charges between individual and team sports and found that compared to team sports, TBI patients in individual sports had significantly longer hospital stays compared to team sports (1.75 days versus 1.34 days, p < 0.001) and costlier ($27,333 versus $19,069, p < 0.001) hospital stays. This may be due to reduced awareness and reduced compliance with return-to-play protocols in individual sports. Safety education information at a young age, increased awareness of TBIs, and additional medical support for individual sports as well as team sports may help mitigate these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Head injury
• concussion
• Pediatrics
• Length of stay

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15438627.2023.2166412

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Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.