Association Between Participation and Satisfaction With Life Over Time in Older Adults With Traumatic Brain Injury: A TBI Model Systems Study.

Objective: To examine the association between participation and satisfaction with life at 1, 2, 5, and 10 years after traumatic brain injury (TBI) in older adults.

Setting: Community.

Participants: Participants ( N = 2362) who sustained complicated mild to severe TBI, requiring inpatient rehabilitation, at age 60 years or older and had follow-up data on participation and satisfaction with life for at least 1 follow-up time point across 1, 2, 5, and 10 years. Age at each time period was categorized as 60 to 64 years, 65 to 75 years, and 75 years or older.

Design: Secondary data analysis of a large multicenter database.

Main measures: Three domains (Productivity, Social Relations, Out and About) of the Participation Assessment With Recombined Tools-Objective (PART-O); Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS).

Results: SWLS increased over the 10 years after TBI and was significantly associated with greater frequency of participation across all domains. There was a significant interaction between age and PART-O Social Relations such that there was a weaker relationship between Social Relations and SWLS in the oldest group (75 years or older). There was no interaction between Productivity or Out and About and age, but greater participation in both of these domains was associated with greater life satisfaction across age groups.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that greater participation is associated with increased satisfaction with life in older adults, across all participation domains over the first 10 years postinjury, suggesting that rehabilitation should target improving participation even in older adults. The decreased association of social relations with satisfaction with life in the oldest age group suggests that frequency of social relations may not be as important for life satisfaction in the oldest adults, but quality may still be important.