Priority Clinical Actions for Outpatient Management of Nonhospitalized Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Outpatient care following nonhospitalized traumatic brain injury (TBI) is variable, and often sparse. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's 2022 report on Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress highlighted the need to improve the consistency and quality of TBI care in the community. In response, the present study aimed to identify existing evidence-based guidance and specific clinical actions over the days to months following nonhospitalized TBI that should be prioritized for implementation in primary care. In systematic literature searches, 17 clinical practice guidelines met our eligibility criteria and an additional expert consensus statement was considered highly relevant. We extracted 73 topics covered by one or more existing clinical practice guidelines. After removing redundant and out-of-scope topics, those deemed essential (not requiring prioritization), 42 topics were subjected to a prioritization exercise. Experts from the author group (n = 14), people with lived experience (n = 112), and clinicians in the community (n = 99) selected and ranked topics they considered most important. There were areas of agreement (e.g., early education was ranked highly by all groups) and discordance (e.g., people with lived experience perceived diagnostic tests/investigations as more important than the other groups). We synthesized the prioritization survey results into a top-10 list of the highest priority clinical actions. This list will inform implementation efforts aimed at improving post-acute care for nonhospitalized TBI.