Research Letter: Interview Versus Self-Administration of Retrospective Brain Injury Identification

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychometrics
• Public Health

Background:

• Accurate identification of traumatic brain injury (TBI) history is crucial for research and clinical care.
• Retrospective assessment of TBI exposure often relies on interviews, which can be resource-intensive.
• Developing reliable self-administered tools is essential for large-scale epidemiological studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the concordance between interview and self-administered versions of the Ohio State University Traumatic Brain Injury Identification Method (OSU TBI-ID).
• To assess the test-retest reliability of the self-administered OSU TBI-ID for identifying brain injury history.
• To evaluate the identification of anoxic/hypoxic events and other acquired brain injuries.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the American Population Panel, with 391 participants aged 18+.
• Employed descriptive measures for concordance and test-retest reliability.
• Administered the OSU TBI-ID, including questions on anoxic/hypoxic events and prior acquired brain injuries, in a randomized order for concordance testing.

Main Results:

• Substantial concordance was found between self-administered and interview OSU TBI-ID results for summary indices.
• High test-retest reliability was observed for most self-administered OSU TBI-ID indices.
• Perfect agreement for history of TBI, loss of consciousness, and repeated head impacts ranged from 85-90%.

Conclusions:

• The self-administered OSU TBI-ID demonstrates psychometric properties comparable to the interview version.
• High concordance and reliability support the use of the self-administered tool for identifying TBI and other acquired brain injuries.
• Findings for anoxic/hypoxic events were supported, though low endorsement rates limited some analyses.