Relationships among Community Reintegration, Coping Strategies, and Life Satisfaction in a Sample of Persons with Spinal Cord Injury

In this study of 78 people living in the community 1 to 7 years after spinal cord injury, community integration and reported coping strategies were investigated for their association with life satisfaction. Community integration was measured in terms of objective and subjective handicap in social roles. Objective handicap, defined by the Craig Handicap Assessment and Reporting Technique (CHART), and subjective handicap, defined by the Perceived Handicap Questionnaire (PHQ), were hypothesized to show an inverse relationship with life satisfaction, as measured by the Life Satisfaction Index-Z (LSI-Z). It was hypothesized that each measure of handicap would provide unique explanation of variability in life satisfaction. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that differences in participants' use of coping strategies, measured via an abbreviated version of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (abbrWOC), would be associated with differences in their reported handicap and life satisfaction. Participants' use of coping strategies was hypothesized to provide a unique explanation of their life satisfaction, even when considered together with the two measures of handicap. The study's hypotheses were partially supported. Objective and subjective measures of handicap were correlated with each other and with life satisfaction. However, only perceived handicap provided a unique explanation of life satisfaction in a multivariate context. Two of the eight assessed coping strategies were associated with life satisfaction, but only one, escape-avoidance coping, remained significant when assessed in conjunction with handicap. These results are discussed in relation to a contemporary theory regarding the effects of individual characteristics and handicap on quality of life and directions for future study are discussed.