Towards Measuring Community Understanding of Traumatic Brain Injury: The Structure and Potential Utility of the Head Injury Knowledge Scale

Abstract

Background and aims: International research has shown the public hold various misconceptions about traumatic brain injury (TBI). Yet, relatively little has been done towards developing appropriate measures of public knowledge of TBI. The Head Injury Knowledge Scale (HIKS, Ono, Ownsworth, & Walters, 2011) is a newly developed measure of misconceptions and expectations about the effects of TBI. Additional investigation of its psychometric properties appeared warranted. The aims of this further preliminary study were to examine the factor structure of the HIKS and the relationship between psychosocial variables and factor scores.Method: A convenience sample comprising 167 adults, of whom 65% were females, responded to an online survey including the HIKS. The two-factor HIKS structure was tested using confirmatory factor analyses and the relationships between psychosocial variables and the HIKS factors were investigated.Results: A good fit was found for the structure of the HIKS. All items loaded adequately onto the HIKS Over-generalisation and Minimisation factors and their internal consistencies were good. Significant differences between gender groups and for level of education were observed on the HIKS Over-generalisation scale, suggesting various groups in the community may have differing levels of knowledge of TBI.Conclusion: This study confirmed the robustness of the HIKS factor structure. The HIKS is likely to be an important measure of community understanding of TBI in future research.

Measuring misconceptions about traumatic brain injury: are existing scales misconceived?

“…Notably, the Cronbach's alpha values for the two subscales improved: overgeneralisation α = .84, and minimisationα = .81. CFA also demonstrated a good fit to the original twodimensional model developed by Ono et al (26), although a moderate co-variance was found between the factors (43).…”

“…A negative correlation was also found between the two sub-scales, giving weight to the claim that they represent two opposing dimensions (26). In its original format, a true-false response format was adopted; however, to carry out confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and improve levels of internal consistency, a 4-point scale was subsequently adopted (43). Notably, the Cronbach's alpha values for the two subscales improved: overgeneralisation α = .84, and minimisationα = .81.…”