Traumatic brain injury: factors predicting return to work or school.
Prediction of outcome for brain-injured individuals will facilitate effective rehabilitation programme planning which will ultimately improve the patient's quality of life. A sample of traumatic brain-injured subjects who had completed their rehabilitation were contacted post-discharge to identify predictive factors for return to work/school. Subjects were given a telephone interview and their charts were examined retrospectively along five subsets of variables in the predictive matrix: sociodemographics, chronicity, indices of severity, physical impairment, and cognitive functioning. Forty-five subjects were used as the study sample to investigate their vocational and educational outcome, and to generate the best predictive model for return to work/school. Twenty subjects made up the test sample used to evaluate the generalizability of the predictive model. Performance IQ score of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised emerged as the most significant predictor of return to work/school. Implications of these findings for treatment and rehabilitation are discussed.
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Acquired Brain Injury Program, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Ontario, Canada.
Dornan
J
J
Schentag
C
C
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011379:Prognosis; D011788:Quality of Life; D012050:Rehabilitation, Vocational / Q000523:psychology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014888:Wechsler Scales