Primary objective: To examine the effect of cognitive rehabilitation therapy (CRT) on psychosocial outcomes in Argentinean patients with acquired brain injury (ABI), in connection with the time elapsed between injury and treatment initiation.
Research design: Self-reported data from patients in a naturalistic setting was collected before and after CRT.
Methods and procedure: An outpatient sample of 75 Spanish-speaking patients with cognitive disturbances secondary to ABI (49 male/26 female, age: 50.2 ± 20.1 years; education 14.3 ± 3.2 years) completed a set of scales on their daily living activities, memory self-perception, quality-of-life and mood. Single and multi-group analyses were conducted, considering pre- and post- responses and the time elapsed between injury and treatment initiation. The influence of socio-demographic moderators was controlled during comparisons.
Main results: Results suggest an improvement in several psychosocial indicators after treatment. Additionally, correlations and group comparisons showed greater improvement in subjective memory and quality-of-life self-reports in patients who began treatment earlier than those who began treatment after a longer time period.
Conclusions: Overall, results suggest that CRT is associated with positive results in different areas of the psychosocial domain and that post-injury time can mediate this effect.
Keywords: Acquired brain injury; cognitive rehabilitation; post-injury time; psychosocial outcomes.