Cognitive complaint and objective cognition during the post-acute period after mild traumatic brain injury in pre-morbidly healthy adults

Primary Objective: The most widely used proxies of cognitive complaint after mTBI are post-concussion syndrome (PCS) symptom checklists, which do not have a clear relationship with cognition. This study investigated whether an mTBI-specific cognitive complaint measure would have clearer associations with objective cognition than a widely used PCS symptom checklist. Research Design: An observational design was used. A sample of 109 participants (52 mTBI and 57 healthy controls) completed a PCS symptom checklist, a cognitive complaint measure, and measures of information processing speed, attention, memory, executive function, depression and anxiety. Main Outcomes and Results: In the healthy control group, cognitive complaint was significantly associated with objective cognitive performance and was not associated with psychological status. In contrast, PCS endorsement was unrelated to objective cognition but was associated with psychological status. For the mTBI group, neither PCS endorsement nor cognitive complaint was associated with cognitive performance, but both measures were associated with psychological status. Conclusions: This study indicates that neither cognitive nor PCS symptom measures are reliable indicators of underlying cognitive function in the post-acute period after mTBI. Further, suffering an mTBI may affect the linear relationship that exists between cognitive symptom endorsement and cognitive function in healthy adults.