Quality of Life Judgements and Appraisals of Life after SCI
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Quality of Life Judgements and Appraisals of Life after Spinal Cord Injury: a Comparison of Healthcare Professionals, the General Population, and People with Spinal Cord Injuries
IRAS ID
310494
Contact name
Bethan Roberts
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Oxford / Research Governance Ethics and Assurance
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 2 days
Research summary
Spinal cord injury (SCI) has been described as one of the most devastating non-fatal injuries, which requires a person to adjust to a new reality without preparation. One model of adjustment to life after SCI suggests the way someone thinks about or “appraises” the injury, and theirability to manage, determines how they cope and psychologically adjust. Although some individuals experience long term emotional difficulties after SCI, there is evidence to suggest that how people evaluate their injury and life satisfaction changes over time and that individuals with SCIs rate their quality of life no differently to those without a SCI. Despite this finding, the evaluations, and beliefs about what it must be like to live with a SCI made by able-bodied individuals appears different to those with lived experience of SCI. Able-bodied individuals tend to underestimate quality of life and make more negative appraisals of living with the injury. Similar findings have also been demonstrated within healthcare staff. This is particularly worrying as healthcare staff will often be involved in making treatment decisions or providing a narrative to patients about what life might be like after life changing injuries. As such, this study aims to investigate whether people with SCI (PwSCI), healthcare professionals who work with PwSCI, and a general population comparator group, have different appraisals and make different judgements of life satisfaction following SCI. This will be done by giving the PwSCI, the health care professionals who work in SCI rehabilitation, and the comparator group a vignette of a person that has experienced a SCI resulting in tetraplegia. The groups will then be asked to fill out two questionnaires exploring their judgements of how that person might evaluate their life satisfaction and then appraisals they might make about the injury and their ability to cope. The responses of the group will be compared to understand if there are differences between how the groups might evaluate life after SCI.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/NW/0043
Date of REC Opinion
15 Mar 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion