Youth who experience concussions may be at greater risk for subsequent mental health challenges, making early detection crucial for timely intervention. This study utilized Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) networks to predict mental health outcomes following concussion in youth and compared its performance to traditional models. We also examined whether incorporating social determinants of health (SDoH) improved predictive power, given the disproportionate impact of concussions and mental health issues on disadvantaged populations. We evaluated the models using accuracy, area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC), and other performance metrics. Our BiLSTM model with SDoH data achieved the highest accuracy (0.883) and AUC-ROC score (0.892). Unlike traditional models, our approach provided real-time predictions at each visit within 12 months of the index concussion, aiding clinicians in making timely, visit-specific referrals for further treatment and interventions.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This project was supported by National Institute of Mental Health funded Center for Accelerating Suicide Prevention in Real-world Settings (ASPIRES) Pilot Grant Program (P50MH127476). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funder.

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

This study was approved by Nationwide Childrens Hospital (NCH) Institutional Review Board (2030585).

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I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

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I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.

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All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors