Review of Cross-Cultural Issues Related to Quality of Life After Spinal Cord Injury

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Article reviews cross-cultural issues related to the conceptualization of quality of life (QOL) in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). The World Health Organization’s International Classification of Function, Disability and Health is used in this article as a framework to better understand factors that may influence QOL after SCI. A number of important steps are summarized with respect to measurement issues in QOL. A comparison between data from 2 countries (United States and Brazil) using the International SCI QOL Basic Data Set shows similarities in scores and good reliability in the Brazilian sample. Substantial, significant correlations were observed among the SCI QOL Basic Data Set items and the WHOQOL-BREF within the American sample. The article concludes with recommendations for the development of cross-cultural measures of QOL for use in the SCI population and a discussion of future directions for cross-cultural research on QOL after SCI.

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