Psychological and Social Factors Contributing to Post-traumatic Growth After Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

Introduction: Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in significant changes in a person's life; it has a tremendous psychological impact not only at the individual level but also on their caregiver. There is still little known about the positive psychological changes following SCI. The aim of this study was to determine the psychological and social factors affecting post-traumatic psychological growth after SCI.

Methodology: This multi-center cross-sectional study was conducted on 66 patients with traumatic SCI between November 2020 and May 2021 using PWB-PTCQ, HADS, and social support scale. Data were analyzed using the SPSS program.

Result: This study included 66 patients from multilabel territorial centers. The Mean ± SD of the patients’ age was 32.1 ± 14.5 years, and 34 (51.5%) of them were aged <32 years. Male patients were more dominant compared to their female counterparts; 48 (72.7%) versus 18 (27.3%), respectively. The most common type of injury was ASIA-A 24 (36.4%), and the most common nature of stress was financial 33 (53.2%).

Conclusion: Anxiety and depression were less common among our patients with SCI, whereas there were high life stressors, and financial stress was the dominant type of stress among patients. The most affected dimension of PTG was a sense of mastery, whereas relationships and personal growth were the least affected among patients with SCI. Achieving PTG was significantly affected by depression, education level, and life stressors. There was a regression relation between PTG with depression and anxiety, thus PTG can predict depression and anxiety in patients with SCI.