Association Between Participation and Satisfaction With Life Over Time in Older Adults With Traumatic Brain Injury

Research Objectives: To examine the association of participation and satisfaction with life at 1, 2, 5, and 10 years after injury in older adults.

Design: Secondary data analysis of a large multi-center database.

Setting: Community.

Participants: Participants (N=2362) who sustained complicated mild to severe TBI, requiring inpatient rehabilitation, at age 60 or greater and had follow-up data on participation and satisfaction with life for at least one follow-up time point across years 1, 2, 5, and 10. Age at each time period was categorized as 60-64, 65-75, and 75+.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Three domains (Productivity, Social Relations, Out and About) of the Participation Assessment With Recombined Tools- Objective (PART-O); Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS).

Results: SWLS increased over the 10 years after TBI and was significantly associated with greater frequency of participation across all domains. There was a significant interaction between age and PART-O Social Relations, such that there was a weaker relationship between Social Relations and SWLS in the oldest group (75+). There was no interaction of Productivity or Out and About with age, but greater participation in both of these domains were associated with greater life satisfaction across age groups.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that greater participation is associated with increased satisfaction with life in older adults, across all participation domains over the first 10 years post injury, suggesting that rehabilitation should target improving participation even in older adults. The decreased association of social relations with satisfaction with life in the oldest age group suggesting that frequency of social relations may not be as important for life satisfaction in the oldest adults, but quality may still be important.

Author(s) Disclosures: None.