Informant Report of Financial Capacity for Individuals With Chronic Acquired Brain Injury: An Assessment of Informant Accuracy

Objective: Primarily, to investigate the association between informant report and objective performance on specific financial capacity (FC) tasks by adults with chronic, moderate to severe acquired brain injury, and to examine the nature of misestimates by the informants. Design: Cross-sectional design. Setting: A postacute, community-based rehabilitation center. Participants: Data were obtained from 22 chronic acquired brain injury (CABI) adults, mean age of 46.6 years (SD = 8.67), mean years of education of 13.45 years (SD = 2.15), with moderate to severe acquired brain injury (86% had traumatic brain injury), with a mean postinjury period of 17.14 years (SD = 9.5). Whereas the CABI adults completed the Financial Competence Assessment Inventory interviewa combination of self-report and performance-based assessment, 22 informants completed a specifically designed parallel version of the interview. Results: Pearson correlations and 1-sample t tests based on the discrepancy scores between informant report and CABI group's performance were used. The CABI group's performance was not associated with its informant's perceptions. One-sample t tests revealed that informants both underestimated and overestimated CABI group's performance. Conclusions: Results indicate lack of correspondence between self- and informant ratings. Further investigation revealed that misestimations by informants occurred in contrary directions with CABI adults' performance being inaccurately rated. These findings raise critical issues related to assuming that the informant report can be used as a gold standard for collecting functional data related to financial management, and the idea that obtaining objective data on financial tasks may represent a more valid method of assessing financial competency in adults with brain injury.