Post-concussion symptom reporting and the "good-old-days" bias following mild traumatic brain injury

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the "good-old-days" bias on symptom reporting following mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). The MTBI sample consisted of 86 patients (51.2 men) referred to a hospital-based concussion clinic in Vancouver, Canada. The majority of patients (83.7) were evaluated within 3 months following their injury (M = 1.8 months, SD = 1.7, range = 0.2-8.0 months). Patients provided retrospective preinjury symptom ratings on the British Columbia Post-Concussion Symptom Inventory (BC-PSI). Ratings were compared with 177 healthy controls recruited from the community and a local university. MTBI retrospective ratings were significantly lower than the control group on the BC-PSI total score (p