Neuropsychological and Social Outcome of Patients Sustaining Traumatic Brain Injury in Cotonou

This inaugural study in Benin was aimed at assessing neuropsychological and behavioural problems of patients with traumatic brain injury managed at the Hubert Koutoukou Maga Teaching hospital in Cotonou, and the impact on their standard of leaving. This was a prospective and cross-cutting study with a descriptive and analytical aim. It was carried out from 1 July to 30 October 2018. The study population included patients over 15 years of age who had experienced TBI. A purposive sampling of 585 patients with TBI was done, of which 142 patients could not be reached by phone while. The mean age of patients was 37.16 ± 13.9 years, with extremes ranging from 16 to 87 years. The most frequent complaints were behavioural disorder (79.5%), headache (63.8%) and memory loss (50.4%). The average duration of post traumatic amnesia was 9.08 ± 38.56 days. Sixty-three patients (68.5%) had post-traumatic amnesia that lasted less than 30 minutes and 25 patients (19.2%) had post-traumatic amnesia that lasted over a month. Neuropsychological disorders were more frequent in patients with severe TBI. Attention disorders and difficulties in elaborating strategies were noticed without any statistically significant difference in mild, moderate as well as severe TBI. Nineteen patients lost their job, thus raising the unemployment rate in our sample from 6% to 21%. Among the 100 patients (75%) that recovered their job, 14% had medical follow-up and 10% returned to part-time work. Salary remained unchanged for 61.2% of TBI patients.