Characteristics of a headache on patients with mild traumatic brain injury: Implications for improving nurse practice

Abstract

Introduction: Headache is one of the most frequent reported symptom after mild traumatic brain injury and it affects normal functioning and life as a whole. The goal: The goal is the evaluation of access, the quality and characteristics of the headache which occurs after the mild traumatic brain injury. Material and methods: The research has been done as a study section in the clinical center of Vojvodina, in the neurosurgery section. A survey questionnaire constructed for the purposes of this research was used as a research instrument. The survey questionnaire included twenty-one questions.. The norm for including respondents in the research was for them to be hospitalized patients with mild traumatic brain injury and the norm for determining how bad the injury was Glazgow's coma score was used. For determining the intensity of the headache the numeric pain rate scale from zero to ten was used. Results: The posttraumatic headache was present in all patients. Most of the respondents described the headache as dull pain of high intensity, 50% of them said that the headache is disturbing them while doing everyday activities and that the intensity of the pain is worst in the morning than at night. Also, some reported that bright light, thinking and talking increase the pain level. Conclusion: The data from this study indicate that headaches in patients after mild TBI can be a major problem in terms of their functional abilities. Thus, the primary focus of nurses should be on early detection and relief of these symptoms. We can also view this study as an initial step, which can affect nurses' practice, and thus the well-being of patients and society as a whole.

Keywords

• mild traumatic brain injury
• pain
• posttraumatic headache
• nurse