gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: To demonstrate the clinical use of the QOLIBRI, a disease-specific measure of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) after traumatic brain injury (TBI). QOLIBRI is the acronym for quality of life after traumatic brain injury.

Materials and methods: The QOLIBRI assessment tool consists of 37 items in six specific scales, divided into two parts .First part(items) with 4 subscales for the satisfaction level of cognition (7), self (7), daily life (7) ,social relationship (6) Second par with : two subscales for bothered questions of emotions (5) and physical problems(5). QOLIBRI was completed by 795 patients (585 after severe TBI) in six validated languages (English, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, and Italian). QOLIBRI scores were examined by variables likely to be influenced by rehabilitation interventions and included socio-demographic variables, functional outcome, health status and mental health.

Results: The QOLIBRI was self-completed by 83% within 15–20 min. It was sensitive to areas of life amenable to intervention, such as accommodation, work participation, health status (including mental health), and functional outcome. The scales with the highest scores were emotions, physical problems, and daily life and autonomy while lower levels for life satisfaction were assessed for social relationship, cognition and self-perception scales (all statistically significantly different, paired t-test values -2.10 to 43.39, p<0.04 for all tests).

Conclusion: The QOLIBRI provides information about patient’s subjective perception of his/her HRQoL which supplements clinical measures and measures of functional outcome. It can be applied across different populations and cultures. It allows the identification of personal needs, the prioritization of therapeutic goals, and the evaluation of individual progress. It may also be useful in clinical trials and in longitudinal studies of TBI recovery.