Improving the assessment of outcome after traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injuries are a common cause of disability, particularly for young people, that can leave the person with lifelong limitations. Identifying the consequences of injury is central to finding better treatments for people affected, and research at Stirling has played a key role in improving and developing two areas of outcome assessment. A structured interview for an extended version of the Glasgow Outcome Scale (the GOSE) was developed at Stirling in collaboration with the Department of Neurosurgery at Glasgow University. The interview captures both the psychological and physical consequences of injury, and improves consistency in outcome assessment . The GOSE has subsequently become a preferred measure of global outcome in the field, and has been used in over 300 published clinical and research studies. The need to go beyond assessing disability motivated an international collaboration to develop a novel assessment of quality of life after brain injury (QOLIBRI). The new QOLIBRI scales capture the patient's own perspective, and this complements functional assessments such as the GOSE. Material for the GOSE and QOLIBRI is made freely available, ensuring the widest possible dissemination of these tools to people with an interest in brain injury.

Example publications

Wilson, J.T.L., Pettigrew, L.E.L, Teasdale, G.M. (1998). Structured interviews for the Glasgow Outcome Scale and the Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale: Guidelines for their use. Journal of Neurotrauma, 8, 573-585.

von Steinbuechel, N., Wilson, L., Gibbons, H., et al. (2010). Quality of Life after Brain Injury (QOLIBRI): Scale development and metric properties. Journal of Neurotrauma, 27, 7, 1167-1185.

von Steinbuechel, N., Wilson, L., Gibbons, H., et al. (2012). QOLIBRI Overall Scale: a brief index of health-related quality of life after traumatic brain injury. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.