CoCo-P: A Factor Analytic Model and its Mood Correlates

Abstract

One of the most common consequences of Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is the presence of cognitive complaints. Moreover, these patients often struggle with participation in daily life situations. The Cognitive Complaints – Participation (CoCo-P) Inventory was developed to measure cognitive complaints across areas of daily living. This study aided the development of the CoCo-P by identifying its underlying factorial structure, as well as investigating the association between the factors and anxiety and depression symptoms. Following exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, an 8-factor structure was identified to underlie the complaint items of the CoCo-P, with one general factor loading on all items, and 7 activity-specific factor loadings on items specific to one area of daily living. Additionally, one factor was found to underlie the fatigue items of the CoCo-P. Both the fatigue factor and the activity-specific factor showed significant positive associations with both anxiety and depression symptoms as measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The results suggest that the CoCo-P might be a useful tool in identifying specific areas of daily living that might cause patients particular complaints. Furthermore, the associations with depression and anxiety indicate that these scales might have further clinical implications. Several directions for future research were suggested, an important one being the replication of this study in a patient sample to validate the 8-factor model.