Irrational schematic beliefs and psychological distress in caregivers of people with traumatic brain injury

Objective: To investigate the relation between irrational schematic beliefs and psychological distress in caregivers of persons with traumatic brain i njury (TBI). Design: Cross-sectional mail survey. Participants: One hundred sixteen caregivers of persons with TBI living in the Australian states of Victoria and Queensland who were members of community support groups and br ain injury associations. Measures: The Irrational Beliefs Inventory, Brief Symptom Inventory, income satisfaction, degree of personality and behavior change in the TBI individual, and injury severity. Results: Hierarchical re gression analyses showed that after controlling for the effects of characte ristics of the caregiving situation and the individual with TBI, greater ad herence to irrational beliefs was related to higher levels of global psycho logical distress. Specifically, irrational beliefs related to Worrying were associated with all areas of psychological distress. Conclusion: Results s upport the cognitive theory proposal that irrational beliefs play an import ant role in the adaptation to TBI caregiving. Findings suggest the inclusio n of cognitive therapy strategies in interventions for caregivers.