The Breakfast and Dressing Conflict Task: Preliminary Evidence of Its Validity to Measure Online Self-Awareness After Acquired Brain Injury.

Abstract

Importance: Impaired self-awareness (SA) of deficits after an acquired brain injury (ABI) severely affects patients' independence in activities of daily living (ADLs). However, any assessment tool permits an exhaustive evaluation of SA in the context of ADLs.

Objective: To study the validity of the Breakfast and Dressing Conflict Task (BD Conflict Task) to assess online SA (awareness of performance in the context of a given task) in patients with ABI; to study its interactions with offline SA (general awareness); and to test the validity of a simplified measure of performance monitoring, the ADL Conflict-Monitoring Index.

Design: Convergent validity and correlational study.

Setting: Research laboratory, hospitals, and homes.

Participants: Thirty patients with ABI and 28 neurologically healthy controls.

Outcomes and measures: Using the BD Conflict Task, measures of emergent awareness, self-regulation, anticipatory awareness, and self-evaluation were assessed and their convergent validity and relationship with offline SA were analyzed. The ADL Conflict-Monitoring Index was calculated, and its convergent validity was tested.

Results: The online SA variables of the BD Conflict Task showed convergent validity with traditional online SA measures. Offline SA correlated with emergent and anticipatory awareness in the Breakfast Task. The ADL Conflict-Monitoring Index proved to be a valid measure of patients' performance monitoring.

Conclusions and relevance: These preliminary findings suggest that the BD Conflict Task is a valid tool to assess online SA in patients with ABI and provide further understanding of the online SA-offline SA interaction. Furthermore, the ADL Conflict-Monitoring Index may be a valid and easy-to-use monitoring measure in clinical settings. Plain-Language Summary: Patients with acquired brain injury (ABI) and reduced awareness of their cognitive deficits face problems performing activities of daily living (ADLs) and may show signs of unsafe behaviors. Being aware of one's own abilities involves anticipating problems before starting a task, detecting and correcting errors during the task, and evaluating performance afterward. This study provides preliminary validity for the Breakfast and Dressing Conflict Task, a new tool that assesses aspects of self-awareness simultaneously in the context of familiar and significant ADLs. Furthermore, the tool simplifies the assessment of detecting and correcting errors with an easy-to-use index, making it suitable for use in clinical settings.