Social Communication and Quality of Life

1
Social Communication and Quality of Life
Following Acquired Brain Injury
Michael R. Fraas, PhD Katherine Steere
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
University of New Hampshire Durham, NH
Introduction
Conclusions
Results
Spearman Correlations (Rho)
Findings indicate that communication
effectiveness does influence overall quality of
life for the people with ABI who participated in
this investigation. Furthermore, a higher quality
of life was related to how successful
participants were able to integrate into their
communities. Significant Spearman rhos indicate
the following
Individuals with acquired brain injury (ABI)
often experience issues with social
communication, which can lead to an inability to
develop and maintain social relationships.
Social isolation of survivors of ABI is often
linked to a significant decrease in life
satisfaction 1. Research indicates that poor
social communication skills are one of the issues
limiting successful community reintegration and
subsequent life satisfaction for survivors of ABI
2. The American Speech-Language Hearing
Association (ASHA) has attempted to address this
issue by developing the Quality of Communication
Life Scale (QCLS) 3. The QCLS emerged from a
need within the profession of speech-language
pathology for a reliable tool that could be used
to determine the impact of a communication
disorder on individuals relationships and daily
life activities. ASHA has called for further
investigations that provide comparative findings
from the QCLS and other measures of quality of
life. Purpose of this Investigation To examine
the impact of impaired social communication on
overall quality of life (QOL) of individuals with
ABI.
Scores on QCLS correlate strongly with scores on
the WQOL measure Scores on the WQOL measure
correlate strongly with scores on the CIQ
While non-parametric mean comparisons did not
reveal any significant differences on QCLS scores
based on the amount of time participants were
involved in the SteppingStones program, a scatter
plot indicates that those who have been involved
with the program for longer period of time
demonstrate higher scores on the QCLS
CC Correlation Coefficient Significant
(2-tailed)
Spearman rho correlations coefficients revealed a
significant relationship between scores on the
following measurements
Scores on the QCLS and scores on the WQOL
Participation in the SteppingStones program may
lead to improved communication QOL.
Scores on the WQOL and scores on the CIQ
Methodology
Kruskal-Wallis Test of Mean Comparisons
Participants
The thirty-eight participants (60 male and 40
female) in this investigation were all members of
Stepping Stones, a community-based day program in
Portsmouth, NH for individuals living with ABI.
The members were aged 19-71 (mean 45.84 years).
They were grouped into three categories based on
their diagnosis of ABI
Cerebral vascular accident (CVA) 31.6 Traumatic
brain injury (TBI) 52.6 Other diagnoses (i.e.
tumor, MS) 15.8.
The participants averaged 10.68 years (9 month
45 years) post injury onset. They were members
of the SteppingStones program for 1.97 (2 weeks
6 years) years.
Procedures
Data consisted of responses collected from the
participants on the following measures
Non-parametric comparisons examined mean rank
scores between groups of participants. Results
do not indicate that there is a significant
difference between the groups examined and scores
on either of the three measurement tools.
References
ASHA Quality of Communication Life Scale (QCLS)-
A measure of quality of life and communication
effectiveness. Wisconsin Quality of Life Index
(W-QLI) 4- An overall measure of life
satisfaction. Community Integration
Questionnaire (CIQ) 5- A measure developed to
assess community integration following traumatic
brain injury.

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Scatter Plot Scores on the QCLS and Time
Involved in the SteppingStones Program
Statistics
Responses to the QCLS and W-QOL were analyzed
using the SPSS software program. A frequency
histogram indicated that the data was not
normally distributed. Therefore, a
non-parametric Spearman Rank Correlation was used
to examine relationships between scores on the
QCLS, WQOL, and the CIQ. In addition, a
Kruskal-Wallis test provided a non-parametric
comparison of means between groups based on
diagnosis, time since injury and length of time
participants were involved in the SteppingStones
program.
Acknowledgment
Contact
The Krempels Brain Injury Foundation www.krempelsf
oundation.org
603.862.4591 michael.fraas_at_unh.edu
The scatter plot indicates a relationship between
the length of time members spend in the
SteppingStones program and their scores on the
QCLS.