Exploring experiences of intimacy from the viewpoint of individuals with traumatic brain injury and their partners.

OBJECTIVE: To explore qualitatively the experience of intimacy from the viewpoint of persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their intimate partners. DESIGN: Qualitative interview study. SETTING: Outpatient community. PARTICIPANTS: Eighteen persons with TBI and their intimate partners at a mean length of 4.78 years postinjury. MAIN MEASURES: Open-ended, semistructured, in-depth interviews regarding participants' experience of intimacy, factors impacting intimacy, and need for services. RESULTS: Factors that were perceived as helping relationships remain strong included unconditional commitment, spending time together, open communication, a strong preinjury relationship, bonding through surviving the injury together, social support, family bonds, spirituality, experience with overcoming hardship, and coping skills. Factors that were perceived as barriers to intimacy included injury-related changes, emotional reactions to changes, sexual difficulties, role conflict and strain, family issues, social isolation, and communication issues. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Education regarding the impact of TBI on intimacy should be integrated into rehabilitation. Health professionals should be sensitized as to the needs that persons with TBI and their partners have regarding intimacy and how to make appropriate referrals to assist them.

Perceptions of communication abilities for persons with traumatic brain injury: validity of the La Trobe Communication Questionnaire.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: To further evaluate the construct validity of the La Trobe Communication Questionnaire (LCQ) and to investigate the extent to which self-ratings of adults with traumatic brain injury compared to ratings made by close others and self-ratings made by non-injured matched controls. RESEARCH DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Two hundred and seventy-six adults with TBI (121 of which are >1-year post-injury and previously enrolled in TBI Model Systems and 155 of which were consecutively admitted to a Level 1 trauma centre and were at least 6-months post-injury) completed the La Trobe Communication Questionnaire. In addition, for the TBI Model systems sample, 88 friends/family members and 80 non-injured matched controls participated. MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Principle components analysis with varimax rotation yielded four factors: Initiation/Conversational Flow, Disinhibition/Impulsivity, Conversational Effectiveness and Partner Sensitivity, which were found to have adequate internal consistency. Adequate discriminative validity was obtained in comparing adults with TBI to non-injured matched controls, while no significant differences were found between self-ratings of communication abilities by adults with TBI and those made by close others. CONCLUSIONS: Additional support for the LCQ as a useful measure of perceived social communication abilities was obtained. Confirmatory factor analysis with a larger sample of adults with TBI will be a useful step in further development of this tool.