Faculty Collaboration Database

Comparing the Quality of Life after Brain Injury-Overall Scale and Satisfaction with Life Scale as Outcome Measures for Traumatic Brain Injury Research. J Neurotrauma 2021 Dec;38(23):3352-3363

Date

08/27/2021

Pubmed ID

34435894

Pubmed Central ID

PMC8820285

DOI

10.1089/neu.2020.7546

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85120902523 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   4 Citations

Abstract

It is important to measure quality of life (QoL) after traumatic brain injury (TBI), yet limited studies have compared QoL inventories. In 2579 TBI patients, orthopedic trauma controls, and healthy friend control participants, we compared the Quality of Life After Brain Injury-Overall Scale (QOLIBRI-OS), developed for TBI patients, to the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), an index of generic life satisfaction. We tested the hypothesis that group differences (TBI and orthopedic trauma vs. healthy friend controls) would be larger for the QOLIBRI-OS than the SWLS and that the QOLIBRI-OS would manifest more substantial changes over time in the injured groups, demonstrating more relevance of the QOLIBRI-OS to traumatic injury recovery. (1) We compared the group differences (TBI vs. orthopedic trauma control vs. friend control) in QoL as indexed by the SWLS versus the QOLIBRI-OS and (2) characterized changes across time in these two inventories across 1 year in these three groups. Our secondary objective was to characterize the relationship between TBI severity and QoL. As compared with healthy friend controls, the QOLIBRI reflected greater reductions in QoL than the SWLS for both the TBI group (all time points) and the orthopedic trauma control group (2 weeks and 3 months). The QOLIBRI-OS better captured expected improvements in QoL during the injury recovery course in injured groups than the SWLS, which demonstrated smaller changes over time. TBI severity was not consistently or robustly associated with self-reported QoL. The findings imply that, as compared with the SWLS, the QOLIBRI-OS appears to identify QoL issues more specifically relevant to traumatically injured patients and may be a more appropriate primary QoL outcome measure for research focused on the sequelae of traumatic injuries.

Author List

Kreitzer N, Jain S, Young JS, Sun X, Stein MB, McCrea MA, Levin HS, Giacino JT, Markowitz AJ, Manley GT, Nelson LD, Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) Investigators

Authors

Michael McCrea PhD Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Lindsay D. Nelson PhD Associate Professor in the Neurosurgery department at Medical College of Wisconsin

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adult
Brain Injuries, Traumatic
Female
Humans
Male
Patient Acuity
Personal Satisfaction
Psychometrics
Quality of Life