Financial Capability and Well-Being Concerns for Adults Living with Acquired Brain Injury.

Research Objectives: To describe the financial capability and financial well-being of adults living with acquired brain injury (ABI; ABI-survivors) from the perspective of people with lived experience.

Design: Anonymous online and mail-in survey study.

Setting: Researchers collected responses in Manitoba, Canada from August through October 2021.

Participants: Respondents were adult (18+) ABI-survivors (n=38) or close-others of an ABI-survivor (n=19). ABI-survivors experienced concussion/traumatic brain injury (n=22; 58%), stroke (n=8; 21%), or other ABI mechanisms (n=8; 21%) and had a gender identity of 19 (50%) men, 17 (45%) women, 1 (2.5%) non-binary, and 1 (2.5%) unreported gender. Twenty-eight (74%) ABI-survivors had lived with ABI for at least 6 years. Close-others’, including spouses/partners, parents, other family, paid caregivers, and involved friends, self-reported gender was 3 (16%) men and 16 (84%) women. Fourteen (74%) close-others had provided support to an ABI-survivor for at least 6 years.

Interventions: None.

Main Outcome Measures: ABI-survivors completed a 32-item survey and close-others completed a 22-item survey.

Results: For key indicators of financial capability, 13 (34%) ABI-survivors felt their current financial knowledge and skills were insufficient and 26 (70%) felt that ABI sequelae had at some point affected their financial decisions or financial behaviours. Fourteen (74%) close-others have felt worried about the finance-related decisions or behaviors of the ABI-survivor and 17 (89%) felt that ABI sequelae have at some point affected the financial decisions and behaviors of the ABI-survivor. For key indicators of financial well-being, 22 (58%) of ABI-survivors felt stressed or anxious about finances at least some of the time prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and this increased to 25 (66%) during the pandemic. Seventeen (45%) of ABI-survivors reported having trouble making ends meet every month at least some of the time.

Conclusions: Many ABI-survivors experience financial-capability and financial well-being challenges, often at increased rates compared to the general population. As financial well-being is a salient social-determinant of health, research and targeted interventions are needed to meet the unique finance-related needs of ABI-survivors.

Author(s) Disclosures: None.