Abstract:
The extent to which patient and caregiver characteristics predicted caregiver psychological distress was examined among 60 pairs of former patients who had sustained a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their caregivers (N = 120). Time since injury ranged from 4 months to 10 years. The former patients' current neurobehavioral and affective functioning, alcohol use, awareness of deficit, and time since injury, and the caregivers' perceived social support were entered into a standard multiple regression with caregiver psychological distress as the outcome. Results revealed that the predictor model accounted for 34% of the variance in caregiver distress. Neurobehavioral and affective functioning of the patient was the best predictor, accounting for up to 26% of the variance, followed by caregivers' perceived social support (sr2 = 4%). The results are discussed in the context of identifying characteristics of former patients and their caregivers that may lead to improved quality of life of caregivers