Quality of life in adults with spinal cord injury living in the community

Abstract

The study design used is cross-sectional descriptive survey. The aim of this study is to describe the subjective and objective quality of life (QoL) of adults with chronic non-traumatic spinal cord injury (NT-SCI) and to compare the objective and subjective QoL of adults with chronic NT-SCI with adults who have a chronic traumatic spinal cord injury (T-SCI) and the general population. Living in the general community (non-residential care), Australia. The study included 443 adults with SCI (T-SCI, n=381) (NT-SCI, n=62), all SCI ≥6 months duration. Not applicable. Objective and subjective QoL domains--Comprehensive QoL Scale for Adults, version 5 (COMQoL-A5); acceptance subscale--the Spinal Cord Lesion Coping Strategies Questionnaire, version 1 Australia (SCL CSQ v1.0 Australia). Despite demographic differences, only the objective QoL domain material (higher in NT-SCI) and the subjective QoL domain health (lower in NT-SCI) were significantly different between the SCI subgroups. In contrast, five of the seven objective domains and four of the seven subjective domains were significantly lower in the SCI sample as a whole, compared with the general population. Post hoc analyses suggested that aetiology of the SCI was not responsible for QoL differences within the cohort with SCI. On the whole, aetiology makes little difference to QoL outcomes after SCI. The QoL of adults with chronic T-SCI and NT-SCI fall significantly below that of the general population in most domains.