Experiencing New Relationships as an Adult with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Balancing the Advantages and Costs

Research Objectives: To explore how adults with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) experience new relationships.

Design: Inductive thematic analysis was used to conduct a secondary analysis of semi-structured interviews.

Setting: Community

Participants: Study included 12 participants. Participants were eligible if they: 1) sustained possible mild or mild TBI as defined by the Ohio State University TBI Identification Method, 2) were ≥ 18 years old at the time of a TBI, 3) were able to speak and understand English, 4) were able to access the video conferencing platform, 5) were deemed able to participate in all study activities by study staff, and 6) were community dwelling.

Interventions: N/A

Main Outcome Measures: Experience of new relationships.

Results:

Results: Researchers identified ongoing tensions and patterns relating to the costs and advantages of forming new relationships. The following themes and subthemes were developed to represent these experiences: 1) Advantages of New Relationships, which included connection, contribution, receiving support, and being understood, 2) Cost of New Relationships which included the emotional vulnerabilities and symptom exacerbation related to engagement in new relationships, and 3) How Much to Engage in New Relationships, which involved deprioritizing, actively engaging, or being passively open to new relationships.

Conclusions: Participants reported challenges with forming and maintaining new relationships years after their mTBI. There is a need for further research to explore these challenges with balancing costs and advantages, as well as potential interventions to promote more meaningful engagement in new relationships. It is important to further investigate how these experiences within mTBI compare to other chronic conditions.

Author(s) Disclosures: None