Post-traumatic growth after head injury: a long-term follow-up

To investigate the time course of any positive psychological changes after traumatic brain injury (TBI) by comparing questionnaire responses in two groups of TBI survivors, early, 1-3 years post-injury and late, 10-12 years post-injury.

A cross-sectional, between-group design.

TBI survivors were selected from the Reading Head Injury out-patient records by date of registration, early survivors from 2002-2004 and late survivors from 1993-1996 and sent a battery of postal questionnaires. These included The Post-traumatic Growth Inventory, The Life Satisfaction Checklist and The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Individuals were also given the opportunity to answer questions about their perception of their condition and to provide free text responses to reflect best and worst advice received, to describe positive and negative changes in themselves and to identify their most useful coping strategies.

61 'early' and 65 'late' people were contacted with study details and 52 consented to the study, receiving questionnaires which provided 23 'early' and 25 'late' responses. There was a significantly greater degree of post-traumatic growth, as measured on 'The Post-traumatic Growth Inventory', reported by the later group (*p = 0.000), but no other significant differences between the groups in terms of all the other variables. Both groups reported greater life satisfaction pre-injury.

Measures of Post-traumatic Growth (Relating to Others, Personal Strength, New Possibilities, Appreciation of Life and Spirituality) appear to increase over time after head injury. This is a positive message that clinicians should note and reinforce and could help to shape future adjustment.