Abstract
Background:
The Clinical Profile Screening (CP Screen) Tool is a validated tool that assesses the symptom burden of concussion patients. The scores from this tool aid clinicians in determining specificity and severity of symptoms experienced by patients. While it is widely used as a diagnostic tool, the sex-based differences are underexplored. Understanding these patterns may offer further utility for clinicians in more targeted and individualized assessment and treatments of concussions.
Hypothesis:
Sex-based differences exist in the clinical presentation of symptom burden among pediatric patients with concussion, as measured by the validated Clinical Profile (CP) Screen Tool.
Methods:
Cross-sectional retrospective study of 144 concussive patients (61 males, 83 females) aged 7 to 21 who presented to a concussion clinic between 2023 and 2024. Upon their initial visit, patients completed a CP Screen. This screen is a 29 item self reporting symptom inventory which assesses the following profiles: mood, cognitive fatigue, migraine, ocular, sleep, cervical, and vestibular. Each profile had a computed mean derived from associated items using a Likert-type weighted scaling (0=none and 3=severe). The total symptom scores and individual CP scores were compared between groups using a Mann-Whitney U test. Cohen’s d was used to evaluate effect size.
Results:
There was a statistically significant difference in CP total score (mean: males = 14, females = 21; p = 0.002439), with a small to moderate effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.344). Among the clinical profile domains, migraine (mean: males = 0.44, females = 0.65; p = 0.002439) and mood (mean: males = 0.59, females = 0.83; p = 0.001263) symptoms demonstrated
Conclusion:
Differences in the clinical presentation of symptom burden were identified in pediatric CP scores. These findings suggest that sex-specific factors may play a role in concussion assessment and management. Exploring these differences further could contribute to more targeted and effective evaluation and treatment strategies. However, additional research with larger cohorts and improved control for confounding variables is needed to validate these observations and clarify the underlying mechanisms.