This is the first prospective investigation comparing patients' and their relatives' symptom reports before and after a rehabilitation program for closed head injury (CHI). Twenty-six CHI patients and 26 relatives filled out, in individual interviews, the follow-up interview devised by Levin et al., complemented by an additional 17 questions prior to and immediately after a rehabilitation program. We found that relatives and patients did not manifest significant discrepancies as far as the sums of symptoms were concerned. However, the relatives did tend to emphasize emotional and psychosocial symptoms much more than physical symptoms prior to and after treatment, whereas the CHI patients did not. Interestingly, the patients estimated greater premorbid misadaptation than did the relatives. The patients' symptom report profiles suggested slight perceived improvement following treatment, whereas the relatives' symptom report profiles suggested slight perceived deterioration of the CHI patients following treatment.
