Research plays a key role in improving life after brain injury, by addressing the issues that affect brain injury survivors and exploring how to tackle these. Headway is proud to support researchers across the UK who share our charity mission of improving life after brain injury, and we are keen to help with promoting opportunities for brain injury survivors to get involved with research themselves.
In this feature, we talk to Kirk Sobers, Trainee Clinical Psychologist at Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust about his ongoing research into a topic that resonates with many brain injury survivors: identity after brain injury.
Hi Kirk! It’s great to meet you. Can you start by telling us a bit about yourself?
My name is Kirk, and I am in my third year of clinical training for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Salomon's Institute of Applied Psychology. I worked in specialist neurorehabilitation settings before starting clinical training as a Trainee Clinical Psychologist.
My interest in the brain and its functions developed when I studied psychology, and was strengthened in my Master's in neuroscience. I have since tried to work in such fields and improve the quality of care people receive in this state.
Can you tell us a bit about the research you are currently doing?
My research examines how a person’s sense of self (identity) changes after a brain injury. It seeks to check the suitability of a measure (test) designed to help clinicians identify people whose sense of identity may have changed from this event.
The measure is a questionnaire that has been created with service users who have had brain injuries. It now needs to be tested to check for its validity (making sure that it measures what it is supposed to measure).
As this is a validation study, we hope to have as many people complete the questionnaire as possible to help with the validation process. In addition, we are also comparing this questionnaire to other questionnaires already used by clinicians.
Why have you decided to do this research?
After working with people in a variety of settings who have had brain injuries, I appreciate the significant impact this can have on their lives. I have seen many people react and behave differently to it and have wondered why some people seem to adjust better to a brain injury than others.
In addition, this study seeks to validate a measure designed to examine an adolescent's sense of identity, which is very interesting to me. Adolescence is when a person's sense of self is still developing, and how a brain injury affects these individuals may be different from how a person’s sense of self is more fixed.
What do you hope will come out of the research?
More research into adolescents and brain injury to be stimulated. Clinicians should be able to use the measure to plan timely interventions for the people they see.
Who are you looking for to get involved, and what would they be asked to do?
Adolescents between the ages of 13-24 who have had a brain injury. They will be asked to complete four questionnaires, which should take 20-25 minutes overall.
They will then be contacted a week later to complete one of the questionnaires again, which should take 3-5 mins.
As a thank you to those who have given up their time to take part in this assessment, there will be a prize draw to win up to £100 worth of Amazon vouchers.
How can people find out more or get involved?
They can read the participant information guide, which is available on the first page of the study’s website, https://rb.gy/85hvo7
If people have more questions, they can contact me at KS971@canterbury.ac.uk.
This study has been granted ethical approval to commence from Salomons Ethics Panel.
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