Estimating employment status in a sample of participants with traumatic brain injury referred for neuropsychological assessment for treatment planning or for litigation purposes

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2014-12

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University of Hawaii at Manoa

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Previous research has identified demographic and neuropsychological variables significantly related to the amount of time that individuals take before returning to work following traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, existing models do not identify variables significantly associated with an individual's current employment status as a function of time since TBI. The Meyers Neuropsychological Battery (MNB) is a short battery of neuropsychological tests that assesses the neuropsychological domains most commonly related to the likelihood that an individual will be employed following a TBI. The goal of this study was to examine the degree to which scores from the MNB, in combination with demographic information, predicted an individual's employment status as a function of time since TBI. Using archival data from a private practice neuropsychology database of 192 male and female adults, exploratory and confirmatory hierarchical regression modeling was used to examine the degree to which neuropsychological test scores independently and incrementally accounted for variance in an individual's employment status, while considering time since injury and demographic variables. Regression models were created using forward stepwise binary logistic regression on a sample of 96 participants and confirmed on three separate samples of participants taken from the same database, including samples of litigants and non-litigants. Results showed that regression models were able to correctly classify the employment status of between 78.6% and 88.5% of study participants. These correct classification rates are higher than those attained by prediction models examined in previously published research. The variables that were most consistently identified as significant predictors of employment status were years of education, independent driving status, premorbid occupation, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III Performance IQ score, and the Overall Test Battery Mean. R2 values ranged from 0.28 to 0.40. Results show that post-TBI employment status in the study sample could be predicted using a combination of scores from the MNB and demographic information. These findings may be clinically useful when determining the readiness to return to work of individuals who are recovering from TBI.

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employment status

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Theses for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Psychology.

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