Understanding factors that influence goal setting in rehabilitation for paediatric acquired brain injury: a qualitative study using the Theoretical Domains Framework.

Background While goal setting with children and their families is considered best practice during rehabilitation following acquired brain injury, its successful implementation in an interdisciplinary team is not straightforward. This paper describes the application of a theoretical framework to understand factors influencing goal setting with children and their families in a large interdisciplinary rehabilitation team. Methods A semi-structured focus group was conducted with rehabilitation clinicians and those with lived experience of paediatric acquired brain injury (ABI). The 90-min focus group was audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were thematically coded and mapped against the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to understand influencing factors, which were then linked to the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation - Behaviour (COM-B) model. Results A total of 11 participants (nine paediatric rehabilitation clinicians, one parent and one young person with lived experience of paediatric ABI) participated in the focus group. Factors influencing collaborative goal setting mapped to the COM-B and six domains of the TDF: Capabilities (Skills, Knowledge, Beliefs about capabilities, and Behavioural regulation), Opportunities (Environmental context and resources), and Motivation (Social/professional role and identity). Results suggest that a multifaceted intervention is needed to enhance rehabilitation clinicians' and families' skills and knowledge of goal setting, restructure the goal communication processes, and clarify the roles clinicians play in goal setting within the interdisciplinary team. Conclusion The use of the TDF and COM-B enabled a systematic approach to understanding the factors influencing goal setting for children with acquired brain injury in a large interdisciplinary rehabilitation team, and develop a targeted, multifaceted intervention for clinical use. These represent important considerations for the improvement of collaborative goal setting in paediatric rehabilitation services to ensure that best practice approaches to goal setting are implemented effectively in clinical practice.