Understanding Health-related Quality of Life in Caregivers of Civilians and Service Members/Veterans With Traumatic Brain Injury: Establishing the Reliability and Validity of PROMIS Mental Health Measures.

The sample was mostly Caucasian women who were spouses of the person with TBI, so the results may not apply to male caregivers, non-spousal caregivers, or other racial and ethnic groups. Medical record documentation for injury severity was unavailable for most service member/veteran caregivers, and the civilian and service member/veteran eligibility rules differed. The retest sample differed from the full sample: it was younger, had higher educational attainment, and cared for people who were younger and more impaired, which may affect the three-week stability estimates. Two participants were excluded for missing more than 10% of data, and scores were imputed for some participants on two measures. The paper states that caregivers of high-functioning individuals had higher PROMIS scores, while also stating that higher PROMIS scores indicate worse mental health, so the direction of this known-groups finding is unclear.

Publication types indicate NIH extramural and U.S. government non-PHS research support; no author conflict-of-interest declaration is included in the supplied text.

Do not conclude that using these PROMIS measures improves caregiver mental health. The study tested whether the anxiety, depression, and anger measures were reliable and valid, not whether an intervention helped caregivers.