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Updated: Aug 8, 2026
Detecting Behavioral Deficits in Rats After Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: January 30, 2018
Participant-proxy reliability in traumatic brain injury outcome research
C P Cusick1, K A Gerhart, D C Mellick
1Rocky Mountain Regional Brain Injury System, Craig Hospital, Englewood, Colorado 80110, USA.
Objective:
To assess reliability between persons with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and their self-selected proxies.
Design:
Intraclass Correlation Coefficients were used to assess participant-proxy reliability on the Craig Handicap Assessment and Reporting Technique (CHART), the Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ), and the Functional Independence Measure (FIM).
Setting:
Participants had been discharged to the community from inpatient rehabilitation between six months and approximately five years prior to the study's beginning.
Participants:
204 persons with moderate to severe TBI and their self-selected proxies.
Results:
Eighty-seven percent of the items on the three instruments exhibited moderate to high intraclass correlation (ICC), with strongest participant-proxy agreement for questions assessing concrete, observable information. Participant-proxy agreement was poorest when assessing cognitive and money management capacity as well as out-of-home activities.
Conclusions:
For many types of items, participant-proxy reliability is sufficient to merit the use of proxies in TBI outcome research when the participants are allowed to select their own proxy.
