Suffering even a mild bump to the head can leave people at greater risk of psychiatric problems and early death, a study shows.

Researchers at the University of Oxford and Imperial College studied more than a million people born since 1973 in Sweden and followed them to see how head injuries impacted their lives in the coming decades.

They found that people suffering even a mild traumatic head injury – defined as leaving them feeling dazed or confused – were 60 per cent more likely to have died in the studied period than people who had no injury.

They were also 91 per cent more likely to have been hospitalised for a psychiatric problem, 55 per cent more likely to have done less well in education and 52 per cent more likely to have needed disability benefit.

Around one in 10 people are thought to have suffered from some kind of head injury when they were children or in early adulthood.

The study authors say that parents should keep a close eye on their children following a head injury to make sure they are not falling behind at school and contact doctors if the start noticing any unusual behaviour.