Correlation Between Rehabilitation Program Initiation Time and Individual Indicators in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injuries

Abstract

Introduction: Starting rehabilitation services for spinal cord injury as soon as possible improve the patient's independence and return to society. The role of individual indicators (age, sex, education, marital status, and income) at the beginning of the rehabilitation period was evaluated. Methods: This descriptive-analytical (retrospective) study included all patients with spinal cord injury who received rehabilitation services. For this purpose, the records of 100 patients with spinal cord injury who were referred to Rofeideh Hospital for rehabilitation services between 2015 and 2017 were reviewed. These patients received these services for 21 days. Demographic information, changes in functional independence before and after 21 days using FIM (functional independence measure score) tool, checking and analyzing data in SPSS software version 21, and using U-Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Fisher's exact test, and Spearman's correlation coefficient were performed. Results: In this study, 63% were male and the average age of the subjects was 39.7 (SD=14/90) years, 67% were single and only 5 were illiterate. 83% of participants had an average income. On average, the rehabilitation start time was 92 days after the onset of injury, and the level of functional independence had changed by 10 units. There was a significant relationship between the level of income and the time of rehabilitation, continuation of treatment, and improvement of functional independence, but there was no significant relationship between the time of rehabilitation and: age, sex, marital status, education, mechanism of injury, and level of injury. Conclusion: The results of this research showed that among individual factors, income level is related to rehabilitation program initiation. On the other hand, people with higher incomes had more continuity of treatment, and as a result, they started using rehabilitation services faster and more consistently and experienced more improvement in the level of independence in performing daily life activities.