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Psychosocial long‐term outcome of severe head injury as perceived by patients, relatives, and professionals
Author(s) -
Spatt J.,
Zebenholzer K.,
Oder W.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
acta neurologica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.967
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1600-0404
pISSN - 0001-6314
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0404.1997.tb00091.x
Subject(s) - psychosocial , head injury , term (time) , medicine , outcome (game theory) , head (geology) , psychiatry , injury prevention , psychology , poison control , suicide prevention , occupational safety and health , human factors and ergonomics , clinical psychology , medical emergency , physics , mathematics , mathematical economics , pathology , quantum mechanics , geomorphology , geology
Objective – We systematically compared information on psychosocial outcome of severe head injury (SHI) gathered from different informants. Material and methods – We evaluated psychosocial outcome in 33 subjects 8.1±1.4 years after having suffered SHI using data gathered from the patients themselves, caring relatives, and an assessing neurologist. Results – Our data confirm long‐lasting negative effects of SHI on psychosocial functioning even in patients with only mild or moderate neurological impairment. Specific problems in social intercourse, stemming from impaired self‐control, are regularly reported by the relatives and probably underestimated by the patients and by the doctors. In contrast, we found a remarkable agreement between self‐report and professional estimation in other aspects of psychological consequences of SHI such as depressed mood and social withdrawal. Conclusions – Our results challenge the common view that patients having suffered from severe SHI are altogether unreliable informants. However, SHI patients tend to have difficulties in monitoring their specific problems of control of behaviour in social relationships. Therefore information gathered from the caring relatives should always be included when evaluating psychosocial sequels of severe SHI.