Views on Quality of Life Differ Between Alcohol Related Brain Damaged Individuals and Their Healthcare Professionals

Measuring quality of life (QoL) in alcohol related brain damaged individuals (ARBDs) is challenging, mostly because patients are characterized by important cognitive impairments and are generally unaware of their defects. However, quality of life assessments are essential to help inform care and rehabilitative settings; thus introducing and including views from healthcare professionals on ARBDs’ quality of life is a reasonable approach. We examine QoL and the perception of cognitive defects among ARBDs and compare them to expert appraisals by acquainted healthcare professionals. We hypothesize that ARBDs self-assessments outscore QoL expert-ratings by professionals and demonstrate an unawareness of their cognitive deficits, with anosognosia being related to the QoL domains of interest. Six domains of QoL and the occurrence of cognitive problems in 14 detoxified alcoholics are investigated by means of self-ratings and expert-ratings from two acquainted healthcare professionals. Anosognosia is assessed by using difference scores between self- and expert-ratings on the manifestation of everyday executive dysfunctions. We find that ARBDs experience anosognosia ( p s