Participation in Communication Activities Following Traumatic Brain Injury: A Time Use Diary Study

Background: Communication impairments following traumatic brain injury (TBI) can represent a significant barrier to successful community reintegration. Previous research has typically focused on linguistic competence to identify communication difficulties experienced by people with TBI living in the community, rather than participation in everyday communication activities.

Objective: To describe communication activities and communication partners of people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) over a 24-hour period compared to matched controls.

Research Design: A cross-sectional study using a customized, mixed-methods survey with time-use data collected from people with TBI and a demographically matched control group.

Methods: Twenty people with TBI living within the community and 20 matched non-injured controls were interviewed about their involvement in communication activities over the previous 24 hours using a time-use diary.Activities were compared between the groups using Mann-Whitney U-tests and Chi-squared tests.

Results: The TBI group spent significantly less time engaged in communication activities and less time engaged in conversation and reported significantly fewer numbers of communication partners compared to the control group.

Conclusion: The results highlight discrepancies in participation in communication activities between people with TBI and people without TBI, suggesting the need for intervention studies to enhance communication participation in daily life following TBI.