Effectiveness of an Educational Intervention on Reducing Misconceptions Among Ethnic Minorities With Complicated Mild to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention designed to reduce traumatic brain injury (TBI) related misconceptions among blacks and Latinos with complicated mild to severe TBI. Design: Randomized controlled trial with masked 1-month follow-up. Setting: Community. Participants: Persons (N=52) with complicated mild to severe TBI (mean best day 1 Glasgow Coma Scale score, 11.27 +/- 3.89) were randomly recruited from 141 eligible participants (mean age, 37.71 +/- 13.88y; age range, 19-66y; mean months postinjury, 24.69 +/- 11.50); 25 participants (48.1%) of participants were black and 27 (51.9%) were Hispanic/Latino. Of the Hispanic/Latino participants, 18 (66.7%) were non-U.S. born and 12 (44.4%) spoke Spanish as their primary language. Twenty-seven individuals were randomized to the educational intervention group and 25 were randomized to the wait-list control group. Interventions: Single-session educational intervention with written materials provided in English or Spanish. Main Outcome Measures: Forty-item Common Misconceptions about Traumatic Brain Injury Questionnaire administered at baseline and 1-month follow-up. Results: After controlling for ethnic and language differences, a significant between-group main effect (P=.010) and a significant time-group interaction for the Common Misconceptions about Traumatic Brain Injury Questionnaire were noted (Wilks Lambda=.89; F-1,F-46 = 6.00; P=.02). The intervention group showed a decrease in TBI misconception percentages, whereas the wait-list control group maintained similar percentages. At 1-month follow-up, the wait-list control group reported more misconceptions than did the intervention group (P=.019). Conclusions: An educational intervention developed to address the recovery process, common symptoms, and ways to handle the symptoms provides promise as a tool to decrease TBI misconceptions among persons from ethnically and educationally diverse backgrounds. The effects of therapist characteristics and the client-therapist relation on outcomes should be further explored. (C) 2016 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine