Abstract
Objective: This study investigated parent‐adolescent agreement in long‐term psychosocial and quality‐of‐life (QoL) outcomes. The sample comprised adolescents aged 15‐18 years, who sustained childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI) between birth and 5 years of age.
Methods: Thirty‐three participants (17 adolescents with TBI and 16 TBI parent‐proxies) were involved in the study which compared parent and adolescent ratings on the Sydney Psychosocial Reintegration Scale‐Child form (SPRS‐C) and the Pediatric Quality‐of‐Life Inventory (PedsQL). The questionnaires were administered through phone interviews.
Results: As hypothesized, parent‐adolescent agreement was acceptable for psychosocial outcome (intra‐class coefficient [ICC] of 0.844, p < 0.001), whereas discrepancies were found for ratings of QoL (ICC of 0.506, p = 0.092).
Conclusion: The finding that parents and adolescents agree on psychosocial outcome is promising for those instances when the patient is unable to report; however, discrepancies regarding QoL suggest caution needs to be taken when interpreting parent‐rated QoL data.