In a nonclinical population of recently deployed soldiers, a substantial proportion of those who had sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) were symptomatic 3 months postdeployment, a recent study found. Almost 25,000 non–medically evacuated soldiers returning from Afghanistan or Iraq to 2 military bases between 2009 and 2014 were screened for mTBI. Researchers evaluated a random sample, oversampling those screening positive, resulting in 557 mTBI cases and 1,010 controls, of whom 366 cases and 599 controls completed 3-month follow-up evaluations. They found:

• About half (47%) of soldiers who had sustained an mTBI during this latest deployment reported PCS at 3-month follow-up vs 25% of controls.
• The most commonly reported symptoms (cases vs controls) were sleep problems (30% vs 14%), forgetfulness (21% vs 9%), irritability (17% vs 8%), and headaches (15% vs 5%).
• mTBI cases were about twice as likely as controls to report receiving rehabilitative services and fair or poor health.
• Other predictors of PCS included posttraumatic stress, combat exposure, and noncephalic pain.