Marital Dyad Perceptions of Injured Partners' Communication Following Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

This study was undertaken to establish empirically whether couples in which the husband has sustained a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) differed significantly, with respect to perceptions of husbands' interpersonal communication skills, from control couples in which the husband had sustained a traumatic orthopaedic injury (ORTHO) without injury to the brain. Fifty married couples (25 TBI dyads and 25 ORTHO dyads) were interviewed and completed a questionnaire for the study. Analysis of variance and planned comparisons were used to examine between- and within-group differences. TBI dyads were significantly different to control dyads with respect to perceptions of husbands' communication abilities. Both husbands and wives in long-term TBI dyads reported husbands to experience continuing interpersonal communication difficulties. As a group, TBI husbands self-reported significantly more communication difficulties than did ORTHO husbands. TBI wives and ORTHO wives also produced significantly different perceptions of their husbands' communication abilities. TBI wives perceived their husbands to have a number of interpersonal communication difficulties, while control group wives reported their husbands to be competent communicators.