Working towards consensus on the assessment of mood after severe acquired brain injury: Focus groups with UK-based professionals.
Alexandra E Rose, Breda Cullen, Sarah Crawford and 1 others
PMID 39380393WHAT IT FOUND
Professionals working with people after severe brain injury agreed mood assessment needs a team process of gathering information, assessing, treating and formulating, not routine questionnaires.
They warned that brain injury symptoms can hide mood problems, and that low mood may be different in this group.
Key findings
01All five groups reached consensus on a process for assessing mood when severe cognitive and receptive communication impairments are present.
02The most popular methods mentioned were observation, formulation and bespoke creative assessment.
03Participants said standardised mood measures may not be useful because Likert or symbol scales can require visual processing and high cognitive function.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 14 professionals took part, and only 2 were medical professionals, so the views may not represent all teams. Participants were recruited from specialists known to the authors, so they may share similar training and views. Participants were clinical psychologists and medical professionals, not patients or families. The study did not include nurses or other multidisciplinary team members, although it recommends their contribution. The nominal group technique may have missed conversation data that would arise naturally. Some participants felt unable to rank tasks, so the model does not show which step matters most.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. Alexandra E. Rose received funding from the Francis and Augustus Newman Foundation as part of her PhD fellowship with the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as a gold standard for mood assessment. The paper says there is no gold standard, and the result is consensus from 14 professionals.