Socio-emotional behaviour following acquired brain injury
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May2014.doc (663.5Kb)
Date
28/11/2014Author
May, Michelle
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Abstract
Introduction: Socio-emotional behaviour difficulties following acquired brain injury
(ABI) have been shown to have a persisting negative effect on quality of life. A
systematic review was carried out to look at the efficacy and clinical effectiveness of
available psychological treatments for socio-emotional behaviour difficulties
following ABI. Research was carried out to further understand socio-emotional
behaviour by exploring the possible underlying cognitive aspects (specifically social
cognition) in a traumatic brain injury (TBI) population. The study investigated the
relationship between social cognition and socio-emotional behaviour post-TBI.
Method: A systematic search of articles published between January 2008 and
November 2013 was carried out following the Cochrane (2008) guidelines. Papers
were quality assessed to identify strengths and weaknesses. In the research study,
forty TBI participants were asked to complete tasks of emotion recognition, theory of
mind, cognitive flexibility, processing speed, attention and working memory. Selfrated
and proxy-rated behaviour questionnaires were also administered.
Results: The systematic review revealed seven studies for inclusion; three papers
looked at a Comprehensive Holistic Approach, two papers on Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy, and two on Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy. The findings suggested that
CHA showed the best efficacy and generalization. However, there were also positive
results within the CBT studies.
The research paper found that the TBI group performed significantly poorer than the
control group on measures of emotion recognition and three out of the four ToM
tasks. The TBI group also performed significantly poorer on measures of processing
speed and working memory (executive function). There was no association found
between performance on any of the cognitive tests and socio-emotional behaviour.
Conclusions: This is an area of limited research, likely due to the challenges of
carrying out research in an ABI population. The systematic review highlighted the
limited research available which has implications in clinical practice due to a lack of
evidence base for potentially effective interventions. The research study results
suggest that there is still a lack of understanding of socio-emotional behaviour and its
underlying cognitive functioning. Further research would improve understanding and
could also focus appropriate post-ABI interventions for socio-emotional behaviour
problems.