A Supported Relationships Intervention to Increase the Social Integration of Persons with Traumatic Brain Injuries

Abstract

A supported relationships intervention was used to increase the integrated social contacts (ISCs) of 3 persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who were each matched with 4 community participants. The intervention consisted of asking participants to meet with their matched counterpart to engage in leisure activities once per week for 4 weeks. Additionally, community participants were provided with a brief training session on TBI, were given specific suggestions on interacting with the persons with TBI with whom they were matched, and received weekly phone calls from the researcher. Frequency of ISCs were analyzed with a multiple baseline design across participants. All 3 participants with TBI increased the frequency of ISCs after implementation of the supported relationships intervention and continued to experience more than baseline levels of ISCs during 8 weeks of follow-up. These data suggest that social integration can be enhanced with a procedure requiring limited staff intervention.