Communication Ability and Work Re-Entry in Adults with Brain Injury

脑损伤成人的沟通能力和重新进入工作

• 批准号: 8253960
• 负责人: Peter Andrew Meulenbroek
• 金额: $ 2.96万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8253960
• 关键词: Accounting; Acquired Communication Disorders; Address; Adult; Age; Area; Behavior; Brain Injuries; Categories; Classification; Clinical; Cognition; Communication; Communication impairment; Competence; Data; Discriminant Analysis; Economics; Employee; Employment; Ensure; Failure; Family Caregiver; Gender; Goals; Health; Health Personnel; Human Resources; Impairment; Individual; Injury; Intervention; Interview; Knowledge; Laboratories; Language; Learning; Life; Link; Literature; Logistic Regressions; Maintenance; Maps; Matched Group; Measures; Memory; Methods; Middle East; Names; Neurorehabilitation; Occupations; Outcome; Participant; Persons; Play; Procedures; Publishing; Quality of life; Race; Rehabilitation therapy; Reporting; Research; Role; Sampling; Science; Services; Societies; Source; Specific qualifier value; Staging; Step Tests; Stress; Survivors; TBI Patients; Techniques; Testing; Translations; Traumatic Brain Injury; Treatment/Psychosocial Effects; Unemployment; United States; Ursidae Family; Vocational rehabilitation; War; Work; Workplace; base; cognitive function; cost; disability; evidence base; executive function; experience; improved; innovation; rehabilitation science; skills; task analysis; text searching; theories; young adult

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of disability among young adults in the United States. A major negative outcome from TBI is loss of employment, which is a source of diminished quality of life and economic stress for TBI survivors, their families, caregivers, and society, which often has to bear the costs. There is clear evidence that communication skills are important for successful employment in general, but little progress has been made in specifying the types of communication skills necessary for successful return to work in adults with TBI. In addition, based on literature searches, there have been no published studies characterizing the communication demands of different types of occupations. This proposal uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to address this gap in knowledge by first identifying communication demands of one specific category of occupation, semi- professional work (Aim 1), then identifying the communication predictors of return to that type of work following TBI (Aim 2). Semi-professional employment is important because semi-professional workers are highly likely to attempt to return to that occupation following TBI. Although communication variables are thought to be an important predictor of return to work, the current state of the science in this area does not allow for hypothesis testing of specific communication variables in workplaces. Therefore, Aim 1 will use qualitative interview and field observation procedures to identify the most relevant communication variables in the semi-professional workplace. These variables will then be matched to standardized tests of communication functions, which will be used to test the hypothesis in Aim 2. For Aim 2, a sample of 40 participants with TBI will be divided into two groups: successfully employed adults with TBI vs. those who were unsuccessful in maintaining semi-professional employment post-injury. Both groups will be administered the tests identified in Aim 1, and discriminant analysis using logistic regression will be used to test the hypothesis that communication variables differentiate between the two groups and thus are linked employment outcome. Findings from this study will make a substantive contribution to research on outcomes from TBI and address translation of laboratory-based measures to outcomes in everyday life. The results also will have clinical utility, allowing for improved targeting of treatment approaches for individuals with communication deficits following TBI. This proposal starts a line of research that will ultimately not only inform theories of outcome after TBI but also generate a taxonomic classification of occupations according to communication demands that can be used to study individuals with a wide variety of communication disorders.

创伤性脑损伤(TBI)是美国年轻人致残的主要原因。创伤性脑损伤的一个主要负面后果是失去就业，这是导致脑损伤幸存者、他们的家人、照顾者和社会的生活质量下降和经济压力的来源，而社会往往不得不承担这些成本。有明确的证据表明，沟通技能对成功就业总体上是重要的，但在明确患有脑外伤的成年人成功重返工作岗位所需的沟通技能类型方面进展甚微。此外，基于文献搜索，还没有发表过关于不同类型职业的沟通需求的研究。该提案采用定性和定量相结合的方法，首先确定一个特定职业类别--半专业工作(目标1)的沟通需求，然后确定在任务完成后重返该类型工作的沟通预测因素(目标2)，以解决这一知识差距。半专业就业很重要，因为半专业工人很有可能在脑外伤后试图重返该职业。虽然沟通变量被认为是重返工作岗位的一个重要预测因素，但这一领域的科学现状不允许对工作场所的特定沟通变量进行假设检验。因此，目标1将使用定性访谈和实地观察程序来确定半专业工作场所中最相关的沟通变量。然后，这些变量将与标准化的沟通功能测试相匹配，这将被用来检验目标2中的假设。对于目标2，40名脑外伤患者的样本将被分为两组：成功就业的患有脑外伤的成年人与那些在受伤后未能成功维持半专业就业的人。两组都将接受目标1中确定的测试，并将使用Logistic回归的判别分析来检验这一假设，即沟通变量在两组之间存在差异，因此与就业结果相关。这项研究的结果将对脑损伤结果的研究做出实质性贡献，并解决将基于实验室的衡量标准转化为日常生活结果的问题。这一结果还将具有临床实用价值，允许改进针对脑外伤后沟通障碍患者的治疗方法。这一建议开启了一系列研究，最终不仅将为脑外伤后的结果理论提供信息，还将根据沟通需求生成职业分类，可用于研究患有各种沟通障碍的个人。