Measuring the social interactions of people with traumatic brain injury and their communication partners: The adapted Kagan scales

Background: Considerable attention has been given to the nature of communication impairments of individuals with TBI (Coelho, 2007 Coelho, C. A. 2007. Management of discourse deficits following traumatic brain injury: Progress, caveats, and needs. Seminars in Speech & Language, 28(2): 122–135.  [Google Scholar]; Ylvisaker, Turkstra, & Coelho, 2005 Ylvisaker, M., Turkstra, L. S. and Coelho, C. 2005. Behavioral and social interventions for individuals with traumatic brain injury: A summary of the research with clinical implications. Seminars in Speech & Language, 26: 256–267. [Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]). However, there have been few data focusing on the way communication partners deal with the often distressing sequelae of TBI.

Aims: This study reports inter- and intra-rater reliability of the Adapted Measure of Support in Conversation (MSC) and Measure of Participation in Conversation (MPC) for TBI interactions.

Method & Procedures: The MSC and MPC were adapted to reflect theoretical models of cognitive-communication support for people with TBI. A total of 10 casual and 10 purposeful TBI interactions were independently rated by two raters to establish inter-rater reliability and by one rater on two separate occasions to determine intra-rater reliability.

Outcomes & Results: Excellent inter-rater agreement was established on the MSC (ICC?=?0.85–0.97) and the MPC (ICC?=?0.84–0.89). Intra-rater agreement was also strong (MSC: ICC?=?0.80–0.90; MPC: ICC?=?0.81–0.92). Over 90% of all ratings scored within 0.5 on a 9-point scale.

Conclusions: This is the first scale to measure the communication partner during TBI interactions. It shows promise in evaluating communication partner training programmes.