A Supported Relationships Intervention to Increase the Social Integration of Persons with Traumatic Brain Injuries

Abstract

A supported relationships intervention was used to increase the integrated social contacts (ISCs) of 3 persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who were each matched with 4 community participants. The intervention consisted of asking participants to meet with their matched counterpart to engage in leisure activities once per week for 4 weeks. Additionally, community participants were provided with a brief training session on TBI, were given specific suggestions on interacting with the persons with TBI with whom they were matched, and received weekly phone calls from the researcher. Frequency of ISCs were analyzed with a multiple baseline design across participants. All 3 participants with TBI increased the frequency of ISCs after implementation of the supported relationships intervention and continued to experience more than baseline levels of ISCs during 8 weeks of follow-up. These data suggest that social integration can be enhanced with a procedure requiring limited staff intervention.

Community-based interventions for adolescents following traumatic brain injury: A systematic review

“…This is despite six of the studies providing only descriptive statistics, with one reporting such data graphically (although unclear labelling made it difficult to assess the impact of the intervention). These studies reported descriptive improvements in social skills (O'Reilly, Lancioni, & O'Kane, 2000), social participation (Johnson & Davis, 1998), caregiver-burden (Palmisano & Arco, 2007), productivity (Feeney & Achilich, 2014), behavioural difficulties (Feeney & Achilich, 2014), orientation (Kirsch et al, 2004), and communication (Agnihotri et al, 2014). One of the CAPS studies reported results approaching significance, which suggested possible improvements in social skills (Tlustos et al, 2016), and an Attention Process Training intervention reported no meaningful functional change in attentional capacity however discussed the possibiliy of some improvement having occurred.…”

“…In the remaining studies, the follow up period was 8 weeks or less (Babcock, et al, 2007;Cook et al, 2014;Johnson & Davis, 1998;Kirsch et al, 2004;O'Reilly et al, 2000;Palmisano et al, 2007;Youse et al, 2009), with two studies capturing outcomes only at the end of the intervention (Feeney et al, 2014;Wade et al, 2008).…”

Accompagnement citoyen personnalisé en intégration communautaire : un défi pour la santé mentale ?

“…Peu d'études ont cependant porté spécifiquement attention à ce type de programme. Johnson et al (1998) ont proposé un projet d'accompagnement citoyen bénévole pour favoriser les contacts sociaux de personnes ayant un TCC par la réalisation d'activités de loisirs. Chaque accompagné était jumelé à quatre citoyens bénévoles qu'ils devaient rencontrer individuellement pour une durée de quatre semaines.…”

“…Dans le présent projet, le fait de rémunérer les accompagnateurs citoyens a facilité la stabilité de leur engagement. Dans une étude similaire, l'engagement d'accompagnateurs citoyens bénévoles s'est démontré difficile, malgré la courte période sur laquelle s'étalaient les rencontres (Johnson et Davis, 1998).…”

“…Dans une société solidaire, les citoyens doivent veiller collectivement à ce que tous puissent se sentir inclus et participer pleinement (Chossy, 2011 ;Dessaule, 2005). L'accompagnement citoyen offre ce soutien aux personnes qui vivent des difficultés à s'intégrer par l'entremise d'activités de la vie quotidienne et des loisirs significatifs pour la personne (Lefebvre, Levert, Bottari, Gélinas, Croteau, LeDroze et al, 2011 ;Johnson et Davis, 1998 ;McCabe, Lipper, Weiser, Hilditch, Hartridge et Villamere, 2007). Il s'agit d'une pratique nouvelle qui a peu été examinée, en particulier de la perspective des accompagnateurs citoyens.…”