Disparities in Adherence to Concussion Clinical Care Recommendations in a Pediatric Population

To characterize the relationship of sociodemographic factors to adherence to provider recommendations for pediatric concussion.

Primary care (PC) practices within the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia network.

Patients aged 5 to 18 years old who presented to any PC site for concussion from September 26, 2019, to December 31, 2019.

Retrospective medical record review.

The primary outcome was adherence to follow-up recommendations as defined by (1) continued follow-up until provider clearance to return to full activity; (2) no more than 2 no-show visits; and (3) for those referred to specialty care (SC), attending at least 1 visit. We compared adherence by race/ethnicity, insurance, age, sex, injury mechanism, and repeat head injury using bivariate and multivariate analyses. A secondary outcome of referral to SC was compared by sociodemographic factors.

A total of 755 patients were included. Overall, 80.5% of the patients met adherence criteria. Following adjustment, non-Hispanic Black patients and publicly insured/self-pay patients were less likely to adhere to recommendations than non-Hispanic White patients (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.60; 95% CI, 0.37-1.00) and privately insured patients (AOR = 0.48; 95% CI, 0.30-0.75), respectively. When assessing differences in referral to SC, non-Hispanic Black patients and publicly insured/self-pay patients were more likely to receive a referral than their non-Hispanic White peers (OR = 1.56; 95% CI, 1.00-2.45) and privately insured patients (OR = 1.56; 95% CI, 1.05-2.32), respectively.

This study highlights disparities in adherence to concussion care recommendations, with non-Hispanic Black and publicly insured/self-pay patients less likely to adhere to follow-up recommendations than non-Hispanic White and privately insured patients, respectively. These disparities may impact recovery trajectories. Future studies should aim to identify specific individual- and system-level barriers preventing adherence to care in order to ultimately inform targeted interventions to achieve equity in care delivery and outcomes.