title: Irritability following traumatic brain injury: divergent manifestations of annoyance and verbal aggression.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate irritability following traumatic brain injury.
  
  
  METHODS
  A prospective study was conducted at a level I trauma centre.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and forty-four participants, which included 80 healthy subjects and 64 patients suffering from TBI, were recruited. Irritability was assessed by the National Taiwan University Irritability Scale (NTUIS) from patients themselves and their families.
  
  
  RESULTS
  the results showed 14.8% of patients and 29.4% of their families reported patients' problems of irritability. Meanwhile, both self-reported and family-reported irritability post-injury were significantly higher than those reported by the healthy subjects. When evaluating two sub-components of irritability, respectively, both family- and self-reported post-injury annoyance were significantly higher than the pre-injury one, while the self-reported post-injury verbal aggression was not.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  TBI patients have remarkable problems of irritability after injuries. Specifically, the results showed that annoyance might be the main characteristic of irritability in TBI patients and patients themselves might be unaware of their verbal aggression post-injury. Hence, it is merited to pay more attention to the annoyance of the patients with TBI and to the reports from significant caregivers when evaluating TBI patients' irritability in clinical settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Therapy, Master of Behavioral Sciences, Clinical Psychology Program, Taoyuan, Taiwan. ccyang@mail.cgu.edu.tw
authors.forename: Chi-Cheng
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Mau-Sun
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Hua
authors.forename: Wei-Chi
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Yi-Hsin
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: Sheng-Jean
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000374:Aggression; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007508:Irritable Mood; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D057566:Self Report; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult