The Relationship Between Coping and Psychological Adjustment in Family Caregivers of Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review

Abstract

A systematic review was conducted to evaluate the association between coping (as measured by the Ways of Coping Questionnaire) and psychological adjustment in caregivers of individuals with traumatic brain injury. Reviews were conducted in accordance with the American Academy of Neurology Guidelines. The major finding across the better rated studies was that the use of emotion focused coping and problem focused coping was possibly associated with psychological adjustment in caregivers. Future studies need to employ carefully crafted designs, adhere to statistical procedure, apply advanced analytic techniques and employ explicit models of coping, which will increase the accuracy and generalizability of the findings.