Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Hamann, Bhavani R.
URN	etd-09212003-205142
Title	Relatives’ Reactions to Patients’ Traumatic Brain Injury: Development and Validation of a Measurement Instrument
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Department	Social Work, School of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Thomas E. Smith Committee Chair Joyce L. Carbonell Committee Member Neil Abell Committee Member
Keywords	Reaction Of Relatives To Brain Trauma
Date of Defense	2003-08-02
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract The cumulative effect of high incidence and long term nature of the consequences, lead to steadily increasing numbers of suffers of the effects of TBI (Burns & Cockrell, 1993). With immediate focus on the patient’s physical and cognitive state, the relatives’ needs go unnoticed. To date, no measurement instrument has been developed which assesses reactions of traumatic brain injury patients’ relatives. The development of such an instrument, the Reaction to Brain Trauma Scale (RBTS) is the focus of this dissertation. The RB TS is a 19-item multidimensional scale scored on a 5-point Likert scale consisting of three domains. The main domain (reaction of relatives to brain trauma) is divided into sub domains of anxiety, depression and life satisfaction. The purposive, nonprobability sample (n = 279) was collected at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bangalore, India. Reliability was tested by determining the internal consistency of the instrument using Cronbachs’ coefficient of alpha. Anxiety, depression and life satisfaction had reliabilities of .73, .81, and .79 respectively. Each sub domain had a low standard error of measurement (SEM). Anxiety and depression had 1.02 and .93 while life satisfaction had an SEM of 1.03. Strong evidence of factorial validity was found. Good convergent construct validity was found by correlating RBTS with three long established instruments, single item indicators and specific demographic indicators (relationship, duration and help received). Discriminant construct validity was demonstrated with correlations of RBTS with education, gender and income.
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