Examining the Role of Self-Monitoring and Social Leisure in the Life Quality of Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

The level of social leisure for the high self-monitors with spinal cord injury (SCI) was hypothesized to be related to life quality, while the level of social leisure would not be related to life quality for the low self-monitors with SCI. A total of 206 individuals with SCI who reside in community responded to the questionnaire that measured life quality, self-monitoring, and social leisure participation along with demographics. Three blocks of independent variables were entered sequentially to examine the contribution of the block to explained variance (R2) in life quality. Particularly, an interaction term was created as a product of self-monitoring and social leisure in order to test the hypothesis. The findings of the study did not reveal a significant change in R2 suggesting that the relationship of social leisure to life quality was not dependent on one's level of self-monitoring. Instead, there was a significant main effect of social leisure participation on life quality in this sample. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.