The Development of a New Computer Adaptive Test to Evaluate Feelings of Being Trapped in Caregivers of Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury: TBI-CareQOL Feeling Trapped Item Bank

Abstract

The new TBI-CareQOL Feeling Trapped item bank was developed to provide a sensitive and efficient examination of the effect that feelings of being trapped, due to the caregiver role, have on health-related quality of life for caregivers of individuals with TBI. Both the CAT and corresponding 6-item SF demonstrate excellent psychometric properties. Future work is needed to establish the responsiveness of this measure to clinical interventions for these caregivers.

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

“…Thus, it is plausible that large variability in the baseline and retest visits may have contributed to this finding. It also seems plausible that the greater variability in scores for caregivers of SMVs (especially for lower HRQOL scores where previous work indicates increased measurement sensitivity [52][53][54][55] ) may also explain the less robust correlations relative to civilian caregivers. It is also possible that demographic differences between the participants who completed only the baseline and the participants who completed both baseline and retest may have accounted for this finding.…”

Understanding Health-Related Quality of Life in Caregivers of Civilians and Service Members/Veterans With Traumatic Brain Injury: Reliability and Validity Data for the TBI-CareQOL Measurement System

“…TBI-Caregiver Specific HRQOL-Participants completed the following TBI-CareQOL 37 item banks: Caregiver Strain, 39 Caregiver-Specific Anxiety, 41 Feeling Trapped, 38 Feelings of Loss-Self, 40 and Feelings of Loss-Person with TBI. 40 Caregiver Strain includes 33 items pertaining to feelings of being overwhelmed, stressed or self-defeated related to the caregiver role.…”

“…Details on SF selection, internal structure evidence, and item-level analysis can be found in complementary papers in this issue. [37][38][39][40][41] Participants completed the full item banks for all TBI-CareQOL measures. Firestar software 48 was used to simulate CAT scores for each participant using data from the full item bank for each measure (CATs were simulated to administer a minimum of four but no more than 12 items, and to discontinue when SE<3).…”

“…The TBI-CareQOL measurement system was developed to address this shortcoming. [37][38][39][40][41] The TBI-CareQOL was designed to capture the unique aspects of HRQOL relevant to caregivers of individuals with TBI. Specifically, the TBI-CareQOL includes several new caregiver-specific measures that reflect important HRQOL constructs (i.e., strain, anxiety, feeling trapped, feelings of loss), as well as measures from the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System 42 (PROMIS), which assesses general symptoms and health concepts across diseases/conditions.…”

Group Differences Among Caregivers of Civilians and Service Members or Veterans With Traumatic Brain Injury

“…16,22 New TBI caregiver-specific item banks were administered using computerized adaptive testing (CAT) and short forms. These items included Feeling Trapped 24 (restricted by caregiving duties), Feelings of Grief/Loss 25 (loss related to the caregiver themselves, as well as the person with TBI), Caregiver-Specific Anxiety 26 (anxiety related to the caregiver role including re-injury concerns, worry about leaving the person alone), and Caregiver Strain 27 (burden, stress, feeling overwhelmed). Only responses from the short form versions were used in this study.…”