Psychiatric morbidity was measured in a prospective follow-up study of 51 patients admitted to hospital after minor head injury. By means of self report questionnaires (eg General Health Questionnaire (SHQ) and Impact of Event Scale), semistructured interviews and symptom-checklists, it was found that nearly half of the patients suffered considerable discomfort after 1 week. Improvement during the 3 months follow-up was generally poor. Both concussional symptoms and stress response contributed to the compromised well-being as measured by the GHQ, but outcome did not correlate to severity of injury. The GHQ-60 score of 1 week showed a strong positive correlation with outcome after 3 months. The incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder was low.