Article Text
Abstract
Objective To develop a theoretically sound, client-derived framework to underpin development of a measure reflecting the impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on a person's self-identity.
Design Grounded theory, based on transcription of audio recordings from focus group meetings with people who have experienced TBI, analysed with constant comparative methods.
Setting 8 different urban and rural communities in New Zealand.
Participants 49 people (34 men, 15 women), 6 months to 36 years after mild-to-severe TBI.
Results The central concept emerging from the data was that of desiring to be or having lost a sense of being an integrated and valued person. The three main subthemes were: (1) having a coherent, satisfying and complete sense of oneself, (2) respect, validation and acceptance by others and (3) having a valued place in the world.
Conclusions This study reinforces the notion that change in self-identity is an important aspect of life after TBI, and provides information on what this concept means to people with TBI. In order to scientifically evaluate relationships between self-identity and other aspects of health (eg, depression, quality of life), and to test the effect of interventions to address problems with self-identity after TBI, a quantitative tool for evaluation of this construct is required. Themes from this research provide a foundation for the development of a measure of self-identity grounded in the language and experience of people with TBI.
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Self-Identity
- Qualitative Research
- Outcome
- Self-Concept
- Lived Experience
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content.
Files in this Data Supplement:
- Data supplement 1 - Online appendix