Service patterns related to successful employment outcomes of persons with traumatic brain injury in vocational rehabilitation

Issue title: Papers from the First International Conference on Vocational Outcomes in Traumatic Brain Injury, Vancouver, Canada, April 14–16, 2005

Guest editors: Dennis J. Magrega and Shelley Johnson

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Catalano, Denise^{a; *} | Pereira, Ana Paula^b | Wu, Ming-Yi^c | Ho, Hanson^d | Chan, Fong^e

Affiliations: [a] Department of Rehabilitation, Social Work and Addictions, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA | [b] Department of Psychology, Universidade Federal do Parana, Curitiba, Brazil | [c] Graduate Institute of Rehabilitation Counseling, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan | [d] Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA | [e] Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, USA

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 940 565 2488; Fax: +1 940 565 3960; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: This study analyzed the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) case service report (RSA-911) data for fiscal year 2004 to examine effects of demographic characteristics, work disincentives, and vocational rehabilitation services patterns on employment outcomes of persons with traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The results indicated that European Americans (53%) had appreciably higher competitive employment rates than Native American (50%), Asian Americans (44%), African Americans (42%), and Hispanic/Latino Americans (41%). Clients without co-occurring psychiatric disabilities had a higher employment rate (51%) than those with psychiatric disabilities (45%). Clients without work disincentives showed better employment outcomes (58%) than those with disincentives (45%). An important finding from this analysis was the central role of job search assistance, job placement assistance, and on-the-job support services for persons with TBI in predicting employment outcomes. A data mining technique, the exhaustive CHAID analysis, was used to examine the interaction effects of race, gender, work disincentives and service variables on employment outcomes. The results indicated that the TBI clients in this study could be segmented into 29 homogeneous subgroups with employment rates ranging from a low of 11% to a high of 82%, and these differences can be explained by differences in work disincentives, race, and rehabilitation service patterns.

Keywords: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), state-federal vocational rehabilitation services, employment outcomes, job placement, work disincentives, CHAID analysis

DOI: 10.3233/NRE-2006-21403

Journal: NeuroRehabilitation, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 279-293, 2006