Abstract:
The sparse literature on gender and TBI suggest reasons to expect gender-based outcome differences. One hundred twenty persons from a cohort of 378 adults admitted with TBI to a Level I trauma Center were studied to examine the relationship between gender and outcome. In this sample, women were predominately older than the men (80% men and 58% women were <50 years old). Factors significantly different by gender included age, payor, arrest history, pre-and post-injury employment, and injury severity. Female gender was a significantly predictive of poorer total DRS and CIQ Productivity even after adjusting for other factors, but not of total CIQ Total, Home and Social scores. This suggests that TBI may be influenced by gender, and that women may be at greater risk for poor outcome.