Traumatic Brain Injury Screening In Correctional Populations

A small but growing body of research looking at the implications of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in correctional populations exists, and it suggests that TBI is a significant problem with serious implications. It appears that the rate of TBI in correctional populations may be significantly higher than that in the general population, and the experience of TBI may contribute to future criminality, violent behavior, poorer mental health, and poor institutional adjustment. However, the absence of a standardized methodology for screening for TBI limits the ability to generalize from the current research. What is needed for researching TBI in correctional populations is a structured interview that can reliably and validly gather data on lifetime occurrences of head injury, in addition to symptom frequency and severity that will allow for identification of TBI. The Traumatic Brain Injury Questionnaire (TBIQ) was developed as a means to address this need, and an initial validation study supported the TBIQ’s validity and reliability (Diamond, et al., 2007). The current study is being developed to further validate the TBIQ by determining its effectiveness in identifying individuals with neurological deficits consistent with TBI