AmBIt: Participation outcomes after childhood Acquired Brain Injury
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Long term participation outcomes of children and youth with severe acquired brain injury
IRAS ID
274504
Contact name
Lorna Wales
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Children's Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
This project aims to discover how the national delivery of future interventions for children and young people with acquired brain injuries can prevent the reported decline in participation. Participation is defined as involvement in life situations and includes both attending and engaging in home, school and community life.
Engaging in participation is a developmental skill that all children acquire in varying degrees in varying situations. However, after a severe brain injury children participate less than their peers (even after intensive neurorehabilitation sometimes lasting months).
Following the re-learning of key skills (walking, talking, and personal care), participation becomes THE goal for returning to home life.
Participation is difficult to measure (many variable factors), so we propose using statistical analysis that allows the inclusion of factors such as age at injury, injury type, individual ability level, family function level and environmental support, hopefully resulting in a participation curve similar to a height/growth curve for paediatrics.
Visits will be made at intervals over a four-year period to a group of children/young people who have had residential rehabilitation at The Children’s Trust.
We will use the Participation and Environment Measure for children and Youth to look at individual’s involvement with home, school and community. In addition, questionnaires will measure independence and family ability while open-ended questions will allow for more complete disclosure.
Our intention is that the findings will allow discovery of the varied factors that help/hinder participation, thus highlighting the barriers preventing participation following a severe brain injury. Innovative interventions will keep children’s/young people’s needs at the heart of rehabilitation as well as potentially reducing lifelong demands on Health and Social Care.REC name
London - Brighton & Sussex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/LO/0686
Date of REC Opinion
11 Jan 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion