Article

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. SETTING: Living in the general community (non-residential
care), Australia. PARTICIPANTS: The study included 443 adults with SCI (T-SCI,
n=381) (NT-SCI, n=62), all SCI >/=6 months duration. INTERVENTION: Not
applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: 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). RESULTS: 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.
CONCLUSION: 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.

Langue : ANGLAIS