Original Article

Association between pre-injury and injury-related factors and cognitive impairment of post-traumatic brain injury patients in a Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia cohort

Authors: Nurshazwin Mohd Roszeki, Mohd Nasir Che Mohd Yusoff, Sabarisah Hashim.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the major global issues as it causes a serious health threatening condition for the injured persons, increased mortality rates, increased physical and cognitive impairment, as well as affecting the health care systems.

Method: The aim of this study was to predict the association between the pre-injury socio-demographic, injury-related factors and cognitive impairments in post-TBI patients. Self-administered questionnaires were used for descriptive correlational study. Three instruments used included (1) pre-injury sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, race, religion, education level, occupation) (2) injury-related factor characteristics (location of brain injury and GCS) and (3) Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) questionnaire to estimate cognitive impairment.

Result: In this study, forty patients were recruited through purposive sampling from surgical based wards and 60.0% of TBI patients had cognitive impairments. This study found an association between injury factors (severity of TBI from GCS result) with cognitive impairment post-TBI among patients. However, there is no association between socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, race, religion, education level, occupation) and cognitive impairment.

Conclusions: The study provided a better understanding on the association between pre-injury socio-demographic characteristics, injury related characteristics of the severity of TBI and cognitive impairments in post-TBI patients during hospitalisation. The results of this study can potentially be used as baseline information to improve the care and treatment needs of patients with cognitive impairment post-TBI during hospitalisation in relation to enhanced quality of life.

Keywords: Traumatic brain injury, Pre-injury related factors, Injury related factors, Cognitive impairment post-TBI, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA).

Citation: IeJSME 2021 15 (3): 27-36

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56026/imu.15.3.27