Study of the correlation between posttraumatic growth with the quality of life of the spinal cord injury patients

Abstract

Posttraumatic growth is a positive psychological change which is induced by traumatic incident as a result of the struggle of the individual against this stressful incident. Current study was performed to assess the correlation between posttraumatic growth after incident and the quality of life in spinal cord injury patients. This was a descriptive-correlational study conducted on 95 of the spinal cord injury patients. The participants were selected from the members of the spinal cord injury association of Tehran province (Iran) using a simple random selection method. Different aspects of the quality of life and condition of posttraumatic growth of the subjects were investigated using the standard questionnaires of Ferrans and Powers quality of life index spinal cord injury and posttraumatic growth scale, respectively. The data were analyzed with statistical package SPSS (version 16) using descriptive-analytical statistical tests. Based on the findings, 41.1 percent of the subjects were in the age range of 33-42 years and 64.2 and 35.8 percent were men and women, respectively. In the majority of the subjects (42.1 percent), 2-12 years had passed since their injury and 89.5 percent of the subjects were paraplegic. In 48.4 percent of individuals the reason of injury was car crash, 15.8 percent was fall from heights, 29.5 percent was Iran-Iraq war, and in 6.3 percent of participants the cause of their injury was due to illness or a congenital problem. Mean of the total score for the quality of life was obtained to be 77.39±11.61, mean score for the dimension of the satisfaction with life and the importance of life dimension were obtained to be 78.26±11.36 and 70.81±82.17, respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient statistical test with p=0.00 and r=0.628, showed a significant and direct relation between the score of the quality of the life of spinal cord injuries patients and posttraumatic growth. In current research a significant and direct relationship between posttraumatic growth and the quality of life of individuals with spinal cord injury was observed, and also the effects of traumatic events, including spinal cord injuries, show the coping efforts of people can lead to the interpretation of the disease with positive effects and that spiritual change in patients is high that causes increase in growth rate after incident and improvement in the quality of life of spinal cord injuries patients.