Assessing Emotional Status Following Acquired Brain Injury: The Clinical Potential of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales

          The article I chose was called "Assessing Emotional Status Following Acquired Brain Injury: The Clinical Potential of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales." The researchers of this article were Tamara Ownsworth, Trudi Little, Ben Turner, Anna Hawkes, and David Shum. I choose this article because it used different tests to test stress with those who have brain injuries. I also thought that this brain test may be useful when testing stress for the stress project.

          Emotional disturbance is common in acquired brain injuries (ABI) and can affect their recovery. The consequences that follow ABI can include having cognitive, physical, behavioral, and emotional difficulties that can affect their daily lives. Some symptoms of behavioral issues can include being in a depressed mood, inability to control emptions, a lack of initiation, and inability to tolerate stress. Emotionally, these people suffer from fronto-temporal damage and ultimately can their emotions are disturbed. When there is damage to the front-temporal the lobes tend to shrink and cause difficulties in the thinking processes with symptoms of acting in strange behaviors, have trouble communicating, and difficulty when walking or other basic movements.

          The aim of this study was to "investigate the reliability and validity of the Depression Anxeity and Stress Scale (DASS) for assessing emotional status following ABI." There were two different samples that were selected: brain tumors and TBI samples. This allowed researchers to compare different mood severities among clinical groups. There were a total of 48 participants who had ABI ranging from ages 28-71 years old and the control group had a total of 29 participants. In the first group there were 25 individuals who had brain tumors and the second group had 23 who suffered from TBI. The different tests that were used to measure their aims were the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the Functional Independence Measure (FIM). Participants were either visited in their homes to be given these tests of during a hospital stay.

          Researchers found that the results of this study supported the clinical potential of the DASS for those who have ABI. The researchers found that for individuals who suffered from having brain tumors measured having a low range of anxiety and lack stability over time. However, the results of those who were in the TBI group did not reflect the stability of the DASS test.

Source:

Ownsworth, T., Little, T., Turner, B., Hawkes, A., & Shum, D. (2008). Assessing emotional status following acquired brain injury: The clinical potential of the depression, anxiety and stress scales. Brain Injury, 22(11), 858-869. doi:10.1080/02699050802446697