Families’ Experiences of a Manualized Intervention for Families Living With Brain or Spinal Cord Injury

Research Objectives: To investigate families’ experiences and perceived benefit of a manualized family intervention, targeting families living with the consequences of acquired brain injury (ABI) or spinal cord injury (SCI).

Design: Qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews.

Setting: Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark.

Participants: Sixteen families (12 ABI, 4 SCI) were recruited from an ongoing randomized controlled trial. Consecutive sampling was used to enroll the first 10 families. To accommodate diversity in participant characteristics, the following six families were enrolled using purposive sampling.
Fourteen of the 16 families (n=33) were couples (age-group: late 20s to early 80s). One ABI survivor (late 50s) participated with his daughter (late 20s) and one ABI survivor (early 20s) with his parents. Eleven of the survivors were men.

Interventions: The family intervention was facilitated by a neuropsychologist and consisted of eight weekly 90-min sessions, initiated six months to two years after discharge from hospital.

Main Outcome Measures: Not applicable.

Results: Preliminary results, from a reflexive thematic analysis, showed that the eight sessions made it easier for the survivors and their caregivers to understand each other’s reactions in everyday life. Especially the survivors became aware of what their caregivers had experienced throughout the pathway of care. The families highlighted that shared experiences during the intervention increased their sense of cohesion giving them new hope for the future. Many of the techniques used in sessions and home-assignments were known by the families. However, the families reported that they attained new inspiration and became aware of using the techniques more actively in their daily life. Especially, the communication techniques were highlighted as beneficial to limit family conflicts. In addition, the families also found these techniques useful outside family settings.

Conclusions: Preliminary results indicated that the intervention was beneficial and perceived as meaningful for the families. However, the analysis is still ongoing and final results will be presented at the ACRM.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors have no financial or non-financial interests to disclose.