Efficacy of Prospective Memory Rehabilitation Plus Metacognitive Skills Training for Adults With Traumatic Brain Injury: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Prospective memory (PM) failure can limit independence and productivity following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Compensatory strategy use may ameliorate the effect of PM impairment on daily life but requires sufficient self-awareness. Metacognitive skills training (MST) can facilitate self-awareness and strategy use and may improve the efficacy of PM rehabilitation.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of compensatory strategy training (COMP) with an MST component (COMP-MST) for reducing everyday PM failure and improving psychosocial integration in adults with moderate-severe TBI, compared to COMP alone and a control condition. Secondary aims were to evaluate the effect of training on psychometric PM test scores, strategy use, self-awareness, and level of care.

Methods: Assessor and participant-blinded randomized controlled trial with 52 participants (77% male, mean age = 39.0. SD = 13.6) allocated to 3 groups: COMP-MST, COMP, and waitlist control. Interventions were delivered over 6 weekly sessions. Measures were collected pre- and post-intervention and 3-month follow-up. Data were analyzed using unstructured linear mixed-effects modeling for repeated measures and planned contrasts between time-points for each group.

Results: The models showed no significant differences between the groups on primary or secondary outcome measures. Significant pre-post intervention improvements were found for significant other's ratings of everyday PM failure for both intervention groups but not the control group, with medium to large effect sizes. Clinically relevant improvements on primary outcomes were found for participants across all 3 groups.

Conclusions: This study found no significant benefits of combining MST with COMP for improving everyday PM and psychosocial integration.

Clinical Trial Registration: Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry https://www.anzctr.org.au/ ACTRN12615000996561.