Variability Across Caregiver and Performance-Based Measures of Executive Functioning in an Acute Pediatric Neurocritical Care Population

Youth admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) for traumatic brain injury (TBI) commonly struggle with long-term residual effects in the domains of physical, cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial/family functioning. In the cognitive domain, executive functioning (EF) deficits are often observed. The Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning, Second Edition (BRIEF-2) is a parent/caregiver-completed measure that is regularly utilized to assess caregivers' perspectives of daily EF abilities. Using parent/caregiver-completed measures like the BRIEF-2 in isolation as outcome measures for capturing symptom presence and severity might be problematic given that caregiver ratings are vulnerable to influence from external factors. As such, this study aimed to investigate the association between the BRIEF-2 and performance-based measures of EF in youth during the acute recovery period post-PICU admission for TBI. A secondary aim was to explore associations among potential confounding factors, including family-level distress, injury severity, and the impact of pre-existing neurodevelopmental conditions. Participants included 65 youths, 8–19 years of age, admitted to the PICU for TBI, who survived hospital discharge and were referred for follow-up care. Non-significant correlations were found between BRIEF-2 outcomes and performance-based measures of EF. Measures of injury severity were strongly correlated with scores from performance-based EF measures, but not BRIEF-2. Parent/caregiver-reported measures of their own health-related quality of life were related to caregiver responses on the BRIEF-2. Results demonstrate the differences captured by performance-based versus caregiver-report measures of EF, and also highlight the importance of considering other morbidities related to PICU admission.