Strengthening the Evidence Base: Recommendations for Future Research Identified Through the Development of CDC's Pediatric Mild TBI Guideline.

OBJECTIVE: The recently published Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evidence-based guideline on pediatric mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) was developed following an extensive review of the scientific literature. Through this review, experts identified limitations in existing pediatric mTBI research related to study setting and generalizability, mechanism of injury and age of cohorts studied, choice of control groups, confounding, measurement issues, reporting of results, and specific study design considerations. This report summarizes those limitations and provides a framework for optimizing the future quality of research conduct and reporting.

RESULTS: Specific recommendations are provided related to diagnostic accuracy, population screening, prognostic accuracy, and therapeutic interventions.

CONCLUSION: Incorporation of the recommended approaches will increase the yield of eligible research for inclusion in future systematic reviews and guidelines for pediatric mTBI.