Friendship Quality, Friendship Quantity, and Social Participation in Adults with Traumatic Brain Injury.
Margaret A Flynn, Bilge Mutlu, Melissa C Duff and 1 others
PMID 30231267WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with TBI had less social participation than matched peers, but their friendships were rated as high quality and their number of friends was not clearly lower.
Most still had at least one close friendship their friend also valued.
Key findings
01Adults with TBI reported lower social participation than matched adults without TBI.
02Adults with TBI reported fewer friends than matched adults without TBI, but the difference was not statistically significant.
03Friendship quality did not differ between groups, but friends of adults with TBI reported significantly lower friendship affection than the adults with TBI did.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study included only 18 adults with TBI and 18 comparison adults, so small differences could have been missed. Two adults with TBI could not nominate a friend, and participants who could not nominate one were excluded from the friendship-quality analysis, which may have favored people who already had friends. Only 11 of 18 comparison participant-friend pairs returned both friendship measures, reducing the data available for within-pair comparisons. The study did not measure quality of life or compare current friendships with pre-injury friendships, so it cannot show how much change occurred or how friendships affect quality of life. Participants had to be understandable to a naïve listener and were excluded if they had aphasia or failed hearing screening, so the results may not apply to adults with more communication or hearing impairments.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflicts of interest. The article is listed as supported by NIH extramural research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that adults with TBI have the same number of friends as uninjured adults. The TBI group reported fewer friends, but the difference was not statistically significant, and people without a nominated friend were excluded, so the study may overestimate friendship availability.