A-91 Examining Symptoms of Depression in Traumatic Brain Injury Survivors Attention and Processing Speed Abilities

Abstract

Abstract Objective We examined the effects of depression in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and healthy comparison (HC) adults attention/processing speed (APS) performance. Method The sample size consisted of 44 acute TBI (ATBI), 32 chronic TBI (CTBI), and 59 HC participants. The Symbol Digit Modalities Test Oral (SDMT-O) and written (SDMT-W), Stroop Color Word Test word (SCWT-W) and color (SCWT-C), and Trail Making Test part A (TMT-A) were used to evaluate APS. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale was used to assess depression (HADS-D). Results ANCOVAs, controlling for age revealed the HC group outperformed both TBI groups on the SDMT-W and SCWT-C, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.08–0.24. We also found the CTBI group outperformed the ATBI group on the SDMT-W, p = 0.000, ηp2 = 0.24. Next, on the SDMT-O and TMT-A, the HC and CTBI groups outperformed the ATBI group, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.10–0.15. On the SCWT-W, the HC group outperformed the ATBI group, p = 0.004, ηp2 = 0.08. Additionally, on HADS-D, both TBI groups reported higher symptoms of depression compared to the HC group, p = 0.002, ηp2 = 0.09. Pearson correlations revealed that for the CTBI group HADS-D correlated with SDMT-W, R2 = -0.36, p = 0.043. Finally, for the HC group HADS-D correlated with SDMT-O, R2 = -0.38, p = 0.003, and SCWT-C, R2 = -0.26, p = 0.045. Conclusions Overall, the ATBI survivors underperformed on all APS tasks compared to the HC group. Furthermore, we found the CTBI group outperformed the ATBI group on several APS tasks. Our data suggests that depressive symptoms are related more to APS tasks in CTBI survivors and HC compared to ATBI survivors.