Factors that Influence Follow-Up Care for Families of Children with Acquired Brain Injury: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To describe factors that contribute to medical/rehabilitation service access following pediatric acquired brain injury (ABI) and identify gaps in the literature to guide future research.

Materials & Methods

The PRISMA framework for scoping reviews guided this process. Peer-reviewed journal databases were searched for articles published between 1/2008 and 12/2020, identifying 400 unique articles. For full inclusion, articles had to examine a variable related to the receipt or initiation of medical/rehabilitative services for children with ABI. Review articles and non-English articles were excluded.

Results

Nine studies met full inclusion criteria. Included studies identified factors focused on four primary areas: understanding brain injury education/recommendations and ease of implementing recommendations, ease of scheduling and attending appointments, age/injury factors, and sociocultural factors. Well-scheduled appointments and simple strategies facilitated families’ access to care and implementation of recommendations. An overwhelming number of recommendations, socioeconomic variables, and transportation challenges served as barriers for families and schools.

Conclusions

This scoping review offers several directions on which researchers can build to improve access to care and recommendation-implementation for families who have a child with an ABI. Enhanced understanding of these factors may lead to better service access, reduction of unmet needs, and enhanced long-term outcomes for children with ABI.

KEYWORDS:

• Brain injuries
• child
• health services accessibility
• rehabilitation
• aftercare
• scoping review (publication type)

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Julie Haarbauer-Krupa for her advisory contribution to this work. Additionally, we are grateful to Alison Gehred for her assistance with the literature search and Joy Reed and Laura Martin for their help with initial abstract reviews. The authors wish to thank the ACRM Pediatric-Adolescent Brain Injury Task Force members for reviewing and providing feedback on the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.