Abstract
Objective
To examine the relation between the frequency of Internet use and depression among
people with spinal cord injury (SCI).
Design
Cross-sectional survey.
Setting
SCI Model Systems.
Participants
People with SCI (N=4618) who were interviewed between 2004 and 2010.
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures
The frequency of Internet use and the severity of depressive symptoms were measured
simultaneously by interview. Internet use was reported as daily, weekly, monthly,
or none. The depressive symptoms were measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9
(PHQ-9), with 2 published criteria being used to screen for depressive disorder. The
diagnostic method places more weight on nonsomatic items (ie, items 1, 2, and 9),
and the cut-off method that determines depression by a (PHQ-9) score ≥10 places more
weight on somatic factors. The average scores of somatic and nonsomatic items represented
the severity of somatic and nonsomatic symptoms, respectively.
Results
Our multivariate logistic regression model indicated that daily Internet users were
less likely to have depressive symptoms (odds ratio=.77; 95% confidence interval,
.64–.93), if the diagnostic method was used. The linear multivariate regression analysis
indicated that daily and weekly Internet usage were associated with fewer nonsomatic
symptoms; no significant association was observed between daily or weekly Internet
usage and somatic symptoms.
Conclusions
People with SCI who used the Internet daily were less likely to have depressive symptoms.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
AIS (ASIA Impairment Scale), CI (confidence interval), NSCID (National Spinal Cord Injury Database), OR (odds ratio), PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), SCI (spinal cord injury)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 26, 2013
Footnotes
Current affiliation for Graves, Department of Neurological Surgery/Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Louisville School of Medicine.
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit on the authors or on any organization with which the authors are associated.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
