The relationship between resilience, emotional distress, and community participation outcomes following traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT

Purpose/Objective: To determine how resilience is associated with social participation outcomes in persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI), in the context of emotional distress, demographics, and injury-related factors.

Setting: Individuals with a history of TBI recruited the following stay at three rehabilitation facilities in the USA.

Participants: 201 community-dwelling persons with medically documented TBI ranging in severity from mild to severe.

Design: Prospective cohort observational study. Data were collected at two time points, approximately 6 months apart.

Main Measures: TBI-QOL; PART-O

Results: Resilience at baseline was moderately to strongly correlated with baseline psychological distress variables (r_s= −.66) and social participation variables (r_s =.33 to.57). In regression analyses, resilience was directly associated with social participation outcomes and formed a significant interaction with emotional distress in some models. Resilience failed to show a relationship with social participation at 6-month follow-up, when controlling for baseline social participation.

Conclusions: Though related to emotional distress, self-reported resilience makes a unique contribution to predicting outcomes over time following brain injury, and may impact the relationship between stress and negative participation outcomes. As such, it is possible interventions that promote resilience may mitigate distress and promote community integration.

KEYWORDS:

• Resilience
• traumatic brain injury
• emotional distress
• community integration

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The contents of this article were developed under grants from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant numbers 90RT5007 and 90DP0028). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this article do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.