REACT: Reactions Event Appraisals and Context in TBI - The REACT Project’s primary objective is to provide new knowledge to better understand angry and aggressive reactions that persons with chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI) experience in response to events in their daily lives. This will be accomplished by examining the patterns of occurrence of angry and aggressive reactions that people with TBI have over two weeks, and associations of these reactions to contextual factors, personal characteristics, appraisals of real-life events, and emotion regulation behaviors using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). At this exploratory research stage, this knowledge will inform next research steps to improve patient/family education, screening protocols to identify patient-specific mechanisms driving anger/aggression, treatment decisions, and new intervention targets for more robust outcomes, with cascading positive impacts on the lives of persons with chronic TBI. The short-term outcome will be new knowledge about naturally occurring patterns of anger and aggression in the lives of people with TBI, and factors associated with these disruptive emotional-behavioral reactions. Long-term outcomes will be improved interpersonal relationships with positive impacts on health and function, employment, community living, participation, and overall quality of life among persons with chronic TBI via enhanced diagnostic and treatment approaches for more effective anger and aggression management. Project outputs, which target people with TBI, their family members/caregivers, providers, and researchers, include various educational resources (e.g., fact sheets, videos, presentations to community and professional audiences, and scientific publications). We will accomplish this collaborative work with the engagement of key stakeholders including investigators at 5 Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems sites, consumers, and family members who have lived experience, and TBI advocacy groups.
