Further validation of the Motivation for Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Questionnaire (MOT-Q) in patients with acquired brain injury

The Motivation for Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Questionnaire (MOT-Q) evaluates motivation for rehabilitation in four subscales: Interest in rehabilitation, Lack of anger, Lack of denial, and Reliance on professional help. The objective of this study was to further validate the MOT-Q in 122 inpatients and 92 outpatients with acquired brain injury (ABI). The main measures were motivation for rehabilitation (MOT-Q), self-awareness (Patient Competency Rating Scale), and treatment motivation (Visual Analogue Scale). The MOT-Q showed adequate feasibility in terms of few items with missing responses and few undecided responses. We found no floor or ceiling effects, and significant item-total MOT-Q correlations for 29 of 31 items. Internal consistency was good for the MOT-Q total and acceptable to good for the subscales. The MOT-Q scores were significantly intercorrelated except for the subscales Lack of denial and Reliance on professional help in the inpatient group. The MOT-Q total and subscales were significantly associated with treatment motivation. The Lack of denial subscale showed no significant association with treatment motivation and no to moderate significant associations with self-awareness. In conclusion, the overall MOT-Q is a valid instrument to assess motivation for rehabilitation in patients with ABI. Further research is needed to examine the validity of the subscales.