Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses

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Paediatric head injury: implications for psychosocial adjustment into adulthood

Newitt, Heidi J. ( 2003)

Little is known about the long-term effect of head injury (HI) on psychosocial outcome. The present study examined psychosocial adjustment of a group of adults (aged between 18 and 27 years) who sustained a mild (n = 24), moderate (n = 19), or severe (n = 16) HI as children (aged between 8 and 13 years). Many parents or guardians of the head-injured adults also participated. The adults were recruited from the Royal Children's Hospital's (Melbourne, Australia) neurosurgery ward's admission records from 1983 to 1987. Questionnaires, assessments and interviews were completed during the year 2000, which was 10 to 15 years post-injury. Results generally indicated that those with severe injuries had more cognitive, educational/occupational, behavioural, and social difficulties than those with less severe injuries. Daily living skill functioning seemed to be comparable across injury severity groups. Individual case analyses revealed an additive effect of pre-injury, injury, and post-injury variables on long-term adjustment. Injury severity alone did not account for psychosocial adjustment. It was proposed that rehabilitation services need to be multidisciplinary rather than focusing on physical and cognitive sequelae and that counselling, education, and support services would be beneficial for head-injured individuals and their families for several years post-injury.