Criterion validity of a functional cognitive task in patients with severe traumatic brain injury.
OBJECTIVE
To verify criterion validity of measures from a functional cognitive task (FCT) carried out with patients with severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) at 2-5 years post-injury.


METHODS
Forty-six patients with sTBI took part in a long-term outcome study where the FCT and the Neurobehavioural Rating Scale-Revised (NBRS-R) were administered and the FIM™ instrument was rated. The FCT is a telephone information gathering task for evaluating functional cognitive skills.


RESULTS
Ten of 16 measures of the FCT were significantly correlated with similar or related concepts from the NBRS-R. The FIM™ cognitive score and the individual items of this score were significantly correlated with 13 of the FCT measures and with the percentage of amount of information gathered. Internal consistency was good for 13 of 16 measures. Overall, patients generally had mild difficulty on the FCT concepts.


CONCLUSIONS
The FCT can be used with patients with sTBI to evaluate certain aspects of functional cognition. It has good criterion validity and internal consistency, but additional research is required to further measure reliability and its applicability to other severity of TBI and to other phases of recovery.
McGill University Health Centre-Montreal General Hospital, Montreal, Québec, Canada. joanne.leblanc@mcgill.ca
Joanne
J
LeBlanc
Elaine
E
de Guise
Julie
J
Lamoureux
Kim
K
Meyer
Jennifer
J
Duplantie
Harle
H
Thomas
Michel
M
Abouassaly
Marie-Claude
MC
Champoux
Céline
C
Couturier
Howell
H
Lin
Lucy
L
Lu
Cathlyn
C
Robinson
Eric
E
Roger
Mohammed
M
Maleki
Mitra
M
Feyz
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013689:Telephone; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult