Abstract
Objective
To examine sex differences in social inferencing deficits after traumatic brain injury
(TBI) and to examine the odds of men and women being impaired while controlling for
potential confounders.
Design
Cross-sectional survey.
Setting
Two TBI rehabilitation hospitals.
Participants
One hundred five participants with TBI (60 men, 45 women) and 105 controls without
TBI (57 men, 48 women) (N=210).
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures
The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT), which includes (1) Emotion Evaluation
Test (EET), (2) Social Inference-Minimal (SI-M) test, and (3) Social Inference-Enriched
(SI-E) test.
Results
Within the control sample, men and women performed similarly on all 3 TASIT subtests.
Within the group with TBI, men had significantly lower scores than women on EET (P=.03), SI-M (P=.01), and SI-E (P=.04). Using impairment cutoffs derived from the sample without TBI, we found significantly
more men with TBI (30%) were impaired on the EET than women (16.7%); impairment was
similar between men and women on SI-M and SI-E. When adjusting for executive functioning
and education, the odds of being impaired on the EET did not significantly differ
for men and women (odds ratio, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.16-1.40; P=.18).
Conclusions
Although more men with TBI have emotion perception deficits than women, the difference
appears to be driven by education and executive functioning. Research is needed in
larger samples with more definitive norms to better understand social inferencing
impairments in men and women with TBI as well as translation to interpersonal behaviors.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
EET (Emotion Evaluation Test), PTA (posttraumatic amnesia), SI-E (Social Inference-Enriched), SI-M (Social Inference-Minimal), STAI (State Trait Anxiety Inventory), TASIT (The Awareness of Social Inferencing Test), TBI (traumatic brain injury)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 30, 2021
Accepted:
October 25,
2021
Received in revised form:
September 28,
2021
Received:
February 15,
2021
Footnotes
Related Presentation: Neumann, D, Mayfield R, Sander, A, Hammond F, Bhamidipalli S, Jang JH. Does social inferencing differ in men and women after TBI? American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia (Virtual), October 21-23, 2020; Related Published Abstract: Neumann D, Mayfield R, Sander A, Hammond F, Bhamidipalli S, Jang, JH. Does social inferencing differ in men and women after TBI? Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2020;101:E14.
Funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) Field Initiated Program, Grant number 90IF0095-02-00.
Disclosures: none
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.
