Appraising evidence on community integration following brain injury: a systematic review

A systematic review of the community integration (CI) literature for persons with traumatic brain injury was undertaken to evaluate: (1) How do we best measure CI? (2) Can we predict CI following rehabilitation? (3) Does social and activity participation have an effect on CI? (4) Does CI have an effect on quality of life/life satisfaction? Seventy-two articles were analysed. The results demonstrated: (1) strong evidence supporting the use of the Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ), (2) mixed evidence supporting the ability to predict CI, with the prominent predictive variables being severity of injury, age, gender, education, prior work, living environment, cognition, emotional status, functional performance and disability. The literature search was restricted to articles published in English and the heterogeneity in the outcomes, methods, participants and other characteristics not reported. Further research is needed to examine the complex relationship of person, environment and CI.