Does Information and Feedback Improve Children's Knowledge and Awareness of Deficits after Traumatic Brain Injury?

Abstract

A frequent observation in adults suffering severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is that many minimise or appear unaware of their deficits. Few data exist for children, but an initial study by Jacobs (1993) found that knowledge in children after TBI was poor, and this raised issues relating to awareness of deficit. The present study had two aims: (1) to investigate the extent of deficient knowledge and awareness in children and adolescents after severe TBI; (2) to develop an intervention designed to improve knowledge of TBI and awareness of deficit and evaluate its efficacy. Initial evaluation with 21 participants, aged between 9 and 16 years, found a very poor understanding of TBI and some were unaware of their deficits. Subjects were randomly assigned to either an injury-information or attention-placebo session. The results of two-way repeated-measures analyses of variance indicated thatthe intervention session was notsuccessful in increasing the children's knowledge or awareness of deficit. These findings are discussed in the context of possible causes of poor knowledge and unawareness and implications for rehabilitation practice.