Employment stability in the first 5 years after moderate to severe traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE: To characterize employment stability and identify predictive factors of employment stability in working-age individuals after moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) that may be clinically addressed.

DESIGN: Longitudinal observational study of an inception cohort from the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems National Database (TBIMS-NDB) using data at years 1, 2, and 5 post-TBI.

SETTING: Inpatient rehabilitation centers with telephone follow-up.

PARTICIPANTS: Individuals enrolled in the TBIMS-NDB since 2001, aged 18 to 59, with employment data at two or more follow-up interviews at years 1, 2, and 5 (N=5,683).

INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Employment stability, categorized using post-TBI employment data as no paid employment (53.25%), stably (27.20%), delayed (10.24%), or unstably (9.31%) employed.

RESULTS: Multinomial regression analyses identified predictive factors of employment stability, including younger age, white race, less severe injuries, pre-injury employment, higher annual earnings, male sex, higher education, transportation independence post-injury, and no anxiety or depression at 1-year post-TBI.

CONCLUSIONS: Employment stability serves as an important measure of productivity post-TBI. Psychosocial, clinical, environmental, and demographic factors predict employment stability post-TBI. Notable predictors include transportation independence as well as presence of anxiety and depression at year 1 post-TBI as potentially modifiable intervention targets.