TY - JOUR

T1 - "Talk and Chalk": an emotion regulation intervention for anger after acquired brain injury

AU - Witten, Jade Abigail

AU - Coetzer, Rudi

AU - Rowlands, Leanne

AU - Turnbull, Oliver

N1 - This work was supported by The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, The British Psychological Society, and Bangor University.

PY - 2023/6/20

Y1 - 2023/6/20

N2 - Uncontrollable anger is a debilitating consequence of acquired brain injury (ABI). This proof-of-concept study investigated the preliminary efficacy of an emotion regulation intervention for managing post-ABI anger. A secondary objective was to determine which participant characteristics were related to intervention gains. With a pre-post intervention design and three-month follow-up, there were five individually administered meetings on Zoom, over a four-month period. 24 adults who had sustained an ABI were enrolled. Participants were mostly males, from 24 to 85 years old. A series of one-way repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to determine the intervention’s efficacy, and Spearman’s rho bivariate correlations for the association between participant characteristics and intervention gains. Significant differences were observed in external anger from baseline to post-treatment; there were no further changes from post-treatment to follow-up. Of the participant characteristics, only readiness to change and anxiety were correlated. The proposed intervention presents a brief, feasible, and preliminary efficacious alternative for regulating post-ABI anger. Intervention gains are associated with readiness to change and anxiety, which has important implications for clinical delivery.

AB - Uncontrollable anger is a debilitating consequence of acquired brain injury (ABI). This proof-of-concept study investigated the preliminary efficacy of an emotion regulation intervention for managing post-ABI anger. A secondary objective was to determine which participant characteristics were related to intervention gains. With a pre-post intervention design and three-month follow-up, there were five individually administered meetings on Zoom, over a four-month period. 24 adults who had sustained an ABI were enrolled. Participants were mostly males, from 24 to 85 years old. A series of one-way repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to determine the intervention’s efficacy, and Spearman’s rho bivariate correlations for the association between participant characteristics and intervention gains. Significant differences were observed in external anger from baseline to post-treatment; there were no further changes from post-treatment to follow-up. Of the participant characteristics, only readiness to change and anxiety were correlated. The proposed intervention presents a brief, feasible, and preliminary efficacious alternative for regulating post-ABI anger. Intervention gains are associated with readiness to change and anxiety, which has important implications for clinical delivery.

KW - anger

KW - brain injury

KW - emotion regulation

KW - participant characteristics

KW - treatment efficacy

U2 - 10.1080/23279095.2023.2224481

DO - 10.1080/23279095.2023.2224481

M3 - Article

JO - Applied Neuropsychology

JF - Applied Neuropsychology

SN - 0908-4282

ER -