Agreement between parentadolescent ratings on psychosocial outcome and qualityoflife following childhood traumatic brain injury

Objective: This study investigated parentadolescent agreement in longterm psychosocial and qualityoflife (QoL) outcomes. The sample comprised adolescents aged 1518 years, who sustained childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI) between birth and 5 years of age. Methods: Thirtythree participants (17 adolescents with TBI and 16 TBI parentproxies) were involved in the study which compared parent and adolescent ratings on the Sydney Psychosocial Reintegration ScaleChild form (SPRSC) and the Pediatric QualityofLife Inventory (PedsQL). The questionnaires were administered through phone interviews. Results: As hypothesized, parentadolescent agreement was acceptable for psychosocial outcome (intraclass coefficient [ICC] of 0.844, p<0.001), whereas discrepancies were found for ratings of QoL (ICC of 0.506, p=0.092). Conclusion: The finding that parents and adolescents agree on psychosocial outcome is promising for those instances when the patient is unable to report; however, discrepancies regarding QoL suggest caution needs to be taken when interpreting parentrated QoL data.