Family Project Based intervention after TBI; a feasibility study V1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A co designed project-based intervention (PBI) to support positive family communication interactions for people recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury; a feasibility study
IRAS ID
305543
Contact name
Myzoon Ali
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Glasgow Caledonian University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
n/a, n/a
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Summary of Research
Communication difficulties are very common following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and have been found to affect not just the person but also their family for many years following the event. Difficulty socialising and maintaining relationships with others following TBI can result in reduced confidence, low mood, unemployment, family breakdown and loneliness. Very few studies have explored how we can help people following TBI more than one year after the injury, however, or actively involved them in designing communication training programmes to make sure they meet their needs. Working with people following TBI and their families to co-design a new therapy is desperately needed as more than 60% of family members taking part in a recent international survey reported that they did not feel that any of their communication needs had been met. Project based interventions (PBI) have been found to improve the communication abilities of people following TBI but no studies have actively included family members within the therapy or delivered the therapy online. The aim of this project is therefore to explore whether project therapy can be delivered online to help people following TBI and their families to work together as a team to improve communication. We will invite people following TBI, and their family members, who are more than 12 months following their injury and live in either Lanarkshire or Greater Glasgow and Clyde to take part in the project. The first part of the project will involve people following TBI and family members meeting in small groups online using Microsoft teams. This will take place on four occasions over three months to enable us to create, design and produce the adapted, online family focused project therapy. The second part of the project will test this adapted, online family therapy with 8 families, using Microsoft teams over a period of twelve weeks. This will enable us to find out whether it will work and is acceptable to both people following TBI and their family members.Summary of Results
Communication difficulties are very common following brain injury and have been found to affect not just the person but also their family for many years following the event. Very few studies have involved people with lived experience of brain injury in designing communication therapy programmes, however, to make sure the therapy is more likely to meet their needs. Project therapy has been found to improve the communication abilities of people following brain injury but no studies have actively included family members within the therapy. The aim of this study was to explore whether project therapy can be used with people following brain injury and their families working together as a team to improve communication. Part 1 aimed to co-design the new family-project based intervention (family-PBI) with people following brain injury and their family members. Part 2 aimed to test the newly designed family-PBI with 2 families. We invited people following brain injury and their families who were more than 12 months following their injury and lived in either Lanarkshire or Greater Glasgow and Clyde to take part in the study. Part 1 Designing the therapy programme together: Six people following brain injury and seven family members took part in small groups over four sessions to create, design and produce the new family-PBI. This involved looking at the general project therapy manual and adapting it to meet the needs of both people following brain injury and their family members. The people taking part in the co-design sessions liked the idea of family-PBI and identified a number of adaptions to make the content more family friendly. This included using real life examples, adding family support resources and providing each family with a toolkit of strategies. A range of perceived personal benefits of being involved in the co-design groups were also reported; peer support, feeling heard, helping others. Part 2 Trying out the new therapy programme: Two families (7 people) then took part in the eight week family- project based intervention to find out whether the therapy processes were possible and acceptable to both people following brain injury and their family members. Both families worked with the speech and language therapist to complete a personally relevant and useful project over a period of eight weeks. Each member of the family also set communication goals to help them work well together on the project and completed interviews with the research team after the therapy to talk about their experiences. Both families completed a project and reported high levels of satisfaction at taking part. Attendance at sessions was 98% and over 80% of the goals set were achieved. The next step for family-PBI is to work with people with lived experience of brain injury to develop the therapy materials further before testing it out with a larger number of families.
Communication difficulties are very common following brain injury and have been found to affect not just the person but also their family for many years following the event. Very few studies have involved people with lived experience of brain injury in designing communication therapy programmes, however, to make sure the therapy is more likely to meet their needs. Project therapy has been found to improve the communication abilities of people following brain injury but no studies have actively included family members within the therapy. The aim of this study was to explore whether project therapy can be used with people following brain injury and their families working together as a team to improve communication. Part 1 aimed to co-design the new family-project based intervention (family-PBI) with people following brain injury and their family members. Part 2 aimed to test the newly designed family-PBI with 2 families. We invited people following brain injury and their families who were more than 12 months following their injury and lived in either Lanarkshire or Greater Glasgow and Clyde to take part in the study. Part 1 Designing the therapy programme together: Six people following brain injury and seven family members took part in small groups over four sessions to create, design and produce the new family-PBI. This involved looking at the general project therapy manual and adapting it to meet the needs of both people following brain injury and their family members. The people taking part in the co-design sessions liked the idea of family-PBI and identified a number of adaptions to make the content more family friendly. This included using real life examples, adding family support resources and providing each family with a toolkit of strategies. A range of perceived personal benefits of being involved in the co-design groups were also reported; peer support, feeling heard, helping others. Part 2 Trying out the new therapy programme: Two families (7 people) then took part in the eight week family- project based intervention to find out whether the therapy processes were possible and acceptable to both people following brain injury and their family members. Both families worked with the speech and language therapist to complete a personally relevant and useful project over a period of eight weeks. Each member of the family also set communication goals to help them work well together on the project and completed interviews with the research team after the therapy to talk about their experiences. Both families completed a project and reported high levels of satisfaction at taking part. Attendance at sessions was 98% and over 80% of the goals set were achieved. The next step for family-PBI is to work with people with lived experience of brain injury to develop the therapy materials further before testing it out with a larger number of families.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 1
REC reference
22/WS/0077
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jul 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion