Healthcare Providers' Self-Reported Pediatric Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Management Practices: Findings From the 2019 DocStyles Survey.
Kelly Sarmiento, Jill Daugherty, Juliet Haarbauer-Krupa
PMID 33656487WHAT IT FOUND
Only 3.8% of healthcare providers answered all seven pediatric mTBI questions in a way most consistent with CDC guideline recommendations.
Adherence varied by item and specialty, with family practitioners and pediatricians generally reporting more guideline-aligned practices.
Key findings
01Only 3.8% of healthcare providers answered all seven questions in a way that is most consistent with the five recommendations examined from the CDC Pediatric mTBI Guideline.
02Adherence to individual guideline items ranged from 26.8% for the item on return to noncontact, light aerobic activity after mTBI to 70.3% for the item on providing information to patients about returning to activity.
03For neuroimaging, 74.8% of family practitioners and 79.6% of pediatricians gave the response consistent with the CDC recommendation, compared with 34.0% of internists and 60.7% of NPs/PAs.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Providers reported their own practices, and the survey did not verify those reports against actual patient care. Providers were not randomly selected; they came from a panel sampled by activity level and past participation, so results may not represent all US providers. The survey did not ask about specific mTBI guidelines or tools. There were no data on how many pediatric mTBI patients each provider diagnosed or managed. Answer choices used broad ranges, such as less than 25%, 25% to 75%, and more than 75%, so exact compliance was unclear. Only providers who said they cared for a pediatric mTBI patient in the past year were included.
Declared interests
Porter Novelli Public Services commissioned the survey, SERMO conducted it, and CDC licensed the results after data collection. Respondents received a $40-$85 honorarium based on the number of questions they were asked to complete. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 3.8% figure as showing that most providers ignore the guideline. It only means 3.8% answered all seven questions in the most consistent way, and the survey did not verify actual practice.