SCI Publications

Article briefly introducing consumers to research on spinal cord injury (SCI) now being conducted at Model SCI Care Systems and collected at the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC). Includes contact information for Model Systems that are conducting research and may be seeking consumer participants or advisors. ...

Study to identify risk factors for poor health outcomes and secondary conditions among Native Americans with spinal cord injury (SCI). Data are from comprehensive telephone interviews with 97 Native Americans with traumatic SCI at least 1 year post-injury. Seven outcome variables were examined: self-rated health; health status compared with ...

Study investigating the relation among aging, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic indicators, and depressive symptoms after spinal cord injury (SCI). Participants were 1,391 individuals with SCI age > 18 who completed a demographic survey and the Older Adult Health and Mood Questionnaire. Results indicate that depressive symptoms are common following SCI ...

Research on the benefits and costs of supported employment is reviewed. Article discusses the overall cost efficiency of supported employment programs, state variations in the costs, and the impact of the Home and Community Based Waiver on costs of supported employment.

Study evaluating risk factors for respiratory morbidity in adults with spinal cord injury (SCI). Data are from convention spirometric testing of pulmonary function in 222 adults with SCI of less than 1 year duration, not using mechanical respiration, including 98 with quadriplegia and 124 with paraplegia. Results indicate that ...

Study comparing demographics, injury characteristics, and functional outcomes of individuals with neoplastic spinal cord compression and those with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Data are from a prospective 5-year comparison of 34 individuals with neoplastic spinal cord compression and 159 individuals with SCI. It was found that participants with ...

Article discussing methodological issues related to measurement of felicitude (happiness) as an outcome for people with physical or intellectual impairments. The author reviews outcome measures for injuries and chronic illnesses and finds that measures have tended to focus on negative rather than positive outcomes. Research concerning the epidemiology of ...

Reviews tools that have been or may be used to measure the outcomes of spinal cord injury (SCI), in order to illustrate how the principles and practices of outcome research can be applied to the sequelae of a specific disability. Reviews databases, generic outcome measures, condition-specific outcome measures for ...

Article discussing barriers to full participation of people with disabilities in research concerning health services and health outcomes. Barriers discussed include random digit dialing (RDD) methodologies that exclude people who screen calls or don't respond quickly to a ringing telephone, use of self-administered questionnaires that people with certain disabilities ...

Study examining factors contributing to secondary conditions in adults with spinal cord injury (SCI). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used with data collected from 117 individuals with predominantly high level SCI. Two independent predictors of a greater number of secondary conditions were identified: more difficulty with instrumental activities of ...

Article proposing a culturally inclusive ecological model of spinal cord injury (SCI) adaptation. The model is intended to integrate and extend existing literature in order to examine racial/ethnic and other factors leading to differential psychosocial outcomes.

Article presenting the fundamentals of rough set theory in a non-technical manner, and outlining how it can be used for data mining and knowledge discovery in databases. An example is given of the use of rough set theory to mine a spinal cord injury (SCI) database to extract rules ...

Study examining secondary conditions in 91 veterans age 22-80 with spinal cord injury (SCI), including prevalence and effects on activities of daily living (ADL). It was found that spasms were the most common secondary condition over 12 months and had the highest rate of chronic occurrence. Other secondary conditions ...

Study examined the validity of using a broad range of demographic and medical characteristics to predict subsequent development of pain 1 year after spinal cord injury (SCI). Data were drawn from a single item on the Short Form-12 of the Medical Outcomes Survey that assessed the extent to which pain ...

Study using a cross-sectional design to examine overall quality of life (QOL) and specific age-related tasks (e.g., dating, paid employment), among young adults with traumatic-onset spinal cord injury (SCI). Participants were 630 individuals age 18-27, who were divided into 4 groups based on age (18-22, 23-27) and injury duration (1-2 ...

Study examining the impact of pain on function across multiple quality of life (QOL) domains among individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). It was found that pain has a consistent detrimental impact on functional status across multiple QOL domains even after controlling for multiple demographic and medical characteristics known to ...