Family members’ experiences of driving disruption after acquired brain injury

ABSTRACT

Primary objective: 1) To explore family members’ lived experiences of driving disruption at early and later stages of the recovery continuum following acquired brain injury (ABI). 2) To describe health-related quality of life of family members of individuals with ABI who are experiencing driving disruption.

Research design: Mixed methods phenomenological research approach.

Methods and procedures: Semi-structured interviews and health-related quality of life questionnaires were conducted with 15 family members of individuals with ABI (early group: 1–12 months post-injury, n = 6; later group: >1 year post-injury, n = 9).

Results: Two main themes were identified: Different for everyone: how driving disruption affects families, and Making it harder: context of driving disruption. The challenges of driving disruption were reported more frequently and with a more intense focus by family members who were caring for their relative for more than 1 year post-injury. This group also reported higher caregiver strain and poorer health-related quality of life. Reduced satisfaction with life, poor mental health and affected family functioning were reported by both groups.

Conclusions: Driving disruption impacts on family members and has long-lasting consequences. It is important for clinicians to work with family members to manage these challenges even years after ABI and consider individual contextual factors.

KEYWORDS:

• Brain injury
• family
• caregiver
• automobile driving
• lived experiences
• quality of life

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the participants for sharing their experiences and the clinicians at Princess Alexandra Hospital for recruiting participants.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. PL is a recipient of the University of Queensland Research Scholarship (UQRS). JL is employed by the Asia-Pacific Centre for Neuromodulation (APCN). The APCN is in part funded by unrestricted research and education funding from Medtronic Inc. and St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital. The funding bodies played no part in the design or conduct of the research or its reporting. For the remaining authors, none were declared. There are no additional funding sources.