The measurement and magnitude of awareness difficulties after traumatic brain injury: A longitudinal study

Previous research suggests that reduced self-awareness is common following traumatic brain injury (TBI). However. few studies have examined the magnitude of this problem in a sample representative of hospitalized individuals. In this longitudinal study, individuals with complicated mild to severe TBIs and their significant others (SO) were evaluated at 1 and 12 months postinjury on the Sickness Impact Profile. Awareness was measured by comparing the level of injury-related problems reported by a person with TBI and their SO. Overall, individuals with TBI did not report fewer difficulties than their SO. In contrast, they frequently reported more injury-related difficulties than their SO. AS there is no commonly or universally accepted definition for differential awareness, the magnitude of underreporting and overreporting problems is presented using four different cutoff scores. A minimum discrepancy is proposed for defining awareness difficulties that is based on the standard error of measurement of the test-retest difference of the measure. Reduced self-awareness was inconsistent across both time and functional domains. These results suggest that reduced self-awareness is not the norm at 1 or 12 months postinjury and highlight the need for a more standardized approach to the measurement and classification of self-awareness.