Empathy after TBI.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Do empathy changes following a traumatic brain injury alter the quality of couple relationships?
IRAS ID
321691
Contact name
Rodger Weddell
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Swansea Bay University Health Board
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) lowers empathy questionnaire scores, which intercorrelate positively with each other and negatively with psychopathy questionnaires. Ecological validation, which is currently weak, will be ecologically evaluated with questionnaires measuring accuracy of partners’ emotional perception and experienced relationship quality.
Participants: 65 patients living with a spouse and treated in Swansea or Cardiff after sustaining a moderate-severe TBI.
Aims: Testing the prediction that empathy questionnaire scores will be higher for spouses than for patients.
To test the prediction that low patient empathy correlates with high inaccuracy of their perception of partner’s emotional state, each will complete validated questionnaires assessing their own emotional status and then their view of their partner’s emotional status (yielding proxy scores). Patient proxy scores (completed by the patient for their spouse) minus spouse actual scores measures patient misunderstanding of spouse emotional status (patient_misunderstanding score). Patient_misunderstanding (and spouse_misunderstanding) scores are predicted to correlate negatively with patient (and spouse) empathy scores.
Testing the hypothesis that low empathy impacts relationship quality. Clinical research and practice correlate low empathy in one partner with feelings of relation isolation and anger towards the other. Accordingly, both partners will complete questionnaires measuring perceived isolation in the relationship and anger towards their partner. It is predicted that low empathy questionnaire scores in partner A will be associated with high scores in partner B’s perceived relationship isolation and their anger towards partner A.
The investigation of the specific attachment consequences of TBI for patients or relatives is at an early stage. We are unaware of any previous report that documents the important data that we intend to gather. Therefore, we expect that this study will also provide publishable, basic quantitative data that will assist the development of assessment and treatment procedures for couples having to deal with empathy impairments following a TBI.
REC name
Wales REC 4
REC reference
24/WA/0197
Date of REC Opinion
11 Jul 2024
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion