NSW Brain Injury Rehabilitation Forum May 2011

 

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What does the Family Burden of Injury Interview tell us about the burden for the family when a child sustains a brain injury?
HELEN BADGE, Brain Injury Rehabilitation Directorate
Presented by Jennie Brentnall,

 

Title: What does the Family Burden of Injury Interview tell us about the burden for a family when the child sustains a head injury?

Authors: Helen Badge & Jennie Brentnall, Brain Injury Rehabilitation Directorate

Background and Aims: The Family Burden of Injury Interview (FBI!) aims to measure the adverse effects of TBI on the family: family burden and family stress. This paper presents a study to provide further support for the reliability of the scale, explore the construct validity of the scale using qualitative methods, and increase the clinical utility through development of a keyform for the FBII.

Methods: Data from a NSW paediatric outcomes project are used to examine reliability and validity of the FBII instrument and develop the keyform. A mixed methods approach is applied to evaluate construct validity of the scale and test and illustrate the strengths and limitations of the keyform scoring method in clinical practice.

Results: The FBI! Stress subscale was unreliable and further use in clinical practice was not supported. The FBII Burden subscale and keyform chart provide valid and reliable scores and facilitate interpretation of the nature and degree of burden experienced by families. Currently the FBI! measures a moderate range of family burden, and increasing the range of the tool would make it more clinically useful. The FBII Burden keyform provides a visual representation of the score profile which provides descriptive and clinically useful information. A demonstration of how clinicians can use the FBI! Burden subscale and keyform in clinical practice will be provided.

Discussion and Conclusions: The FBII shows promise as a reliable and clinically useful to measure and understand how families experience burden when a child sustains brain injury. Further work to increase the scope and utility of the FBII Burden subscale is discussed.