Abstract
Objectives
Examine whether coping flexibility at admission to first spinal cord injury (SCI)
rehabilitation was predictive of distress 1 year after discharge.
Design
Longitudinal inception cohort study.
Setting
Rehabilitation center.
Participants
Of the 210 people admitted to their first inpatient SCI rehabilitation program, 188
met the inclusion criteria. n=150 (80%) agreed to participate; the data of participants
(N=113) with a complete dataset were used in the statistical analysis.
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures
Coping flexibility was operationalized by (1) flexible goal adjustment (FGA) to given
situational forces and constraints and (2) tenacious goal pursuit (TGP) as a way of
actively adjusting circumstances to personal preference. The Assimilative-Accommodative
Coping Scale was used to measure FGA and TGP. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression
Scale was used to assess distress.
Results
Scores on FGA and TGP measured at admission were negatively associated with the scales
depression (r= −.33 and −.41, respectively) and anxiety (r= −.23 and −.30, respectively) 1 year after discharge. All demographic and injury-related
variables at admission together explained a small percentage of the variance of depression
and anxiety. FGA, TGP, and the interaction term together explained a significant additional
16% of the variance of depression and 10% of anxiety.
Conclusions
The tendency to pursue goals early postonset of the injury seems to have a protecting
effect against distress 1 year after discharge. People with low TGP may experience
protection against distress from high FGA.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
FGA (flexible goal adjustment), HADS (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), QoL (quality of life), SCI (spinal cord injury), TGP (tenacious goal pursuit), VAS (visual analog scale)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 02, 2018
Footnotes
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine
