Development of a generic version of the multiple errands test for severe acquired brain injuries

Abstract

Background

Impairment of executive functions is a frequent and disabling consequence of brain injury. In 1991, Shallice and Burgess elaborated the Multiple Errand Test (MET) to assess everyday troubles associated with this impairment.

Objective

Our first aim was to create a generic version of MET (MET-G) readily adaptable to different settings and for retesting. The second aim was to validate the revised version to detect executive impairment in individuals with severe ABI.

Methods

An inter-professional team of experts in neurorehabilitation created a revised version of MET. Twenty-one patients with sABI (severe Acquired Brain Injury) and a control group of 20 neurologically healthy subjects, took part in the testing of MET-G.

Results

MET-G clearly distinguished people with sABI from healthy controls based on Total error score, task completion, and rule breaking. The test showed good inter-rater reliability and internal consistency.

Conclusions

The new, generic version of MET was able to differentiate adults with sABI from controls and proved to be a good tool for evaluating executive functions in these patients in daily-life contexts. Indications on how to adapt the test to different contexts and different scoring modalities are provided.

Keywords:

• Brain injury
• traumatic brain injury
• executive functions
• ecological evaluation
• cognitive rehabilitation

Disclosure statement

The authors certify that there is no conflict of interest with any financial organization regarding the material discussed in the manuscript.

Author contributions

All authors certify their substantial contributions to the design of the work and acquisition, analysis of data, drafting the work, final approval of the version to be published, and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.