The Relationship Between Parental and Family Functioning and Post-Concussive Symptoms After Pediatric Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Scoping Review

This scoping review aimed to address the following questions: (1) Does mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) result in more parental distress or poorer family functioning than other injuries?; (2) Does pre-injury or acute parental distress and family functioning predict post-concussive symptoms (PCS) after mTBI?; and (3) Do acute PCS predict later parental distress and family functioning? Children/adolescents sustained mTBI before age 18 and underwent assessment of PCS and parent or family functioning. MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Embase, and CENTRAL databases were searched to identify original, empirical, peer-reviewed research published in English. PCS measures included parent- and child-reported symptom counts and continuous scales. Parent and family measures assessed parental stress, psychological adjustment, anxiety, psychiatric history, parent-child interactions, family burden, and general family functioning. A total of 11,163 articles were screened, leading to the inclusion of 15 studies, with 2,569 participants (mTBI = 2,222; control = 347). Collectively, the included articles suggest that mTBI may not result in greater parental distress or poorer family functioning than other types of injuries. Pre-injury or acute parental and family functioning appears to predict subsequent PCS after mTBI, depending on the specific family characteristic studied. Early PCS may also predict subsequent parental and family functioning, although findings were mixed in terms of predicting more positive or negative family outcomes. The available evidence suggests that parent and family functioning may have an important, perhaps bidirectional, association with PCS after pediatric mTBI. However, further research is needed to provide a more thorough understanding of this association.