Article

OBJECTIVES: To examine associations among
functional status, health-related and individualised quality of life (QoL) and
coping style in subjects with spinal cord injury (SCI). SETTING: Italy. METHODS:
Forty subjects attending our hospital-based rehabilitation centre for SCI were
administered the Spinal Cord Independence Measure-version III (SCIM-III), the
Short Form-36 (SF-36), the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual QoL-Direct
Weighting (SEIQoL-DW) and the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situation (CISS) to
assess functional status, health-related QoL, individualised QoL and coping
strategies, respectively. RESULTS: The SCIM-III scores were positively correlated
(P<0.01) with the physical functioning subscale of the SF-36. The only scale that
correlated (P<0.01) with the SEIQoL-DW scores was the SF-36 mental health
subscale. Positive correlations among task-oriented or avoidance-oriented coping
and specific measures of health-related QoL emerged. CONCLUSIONS: Data from the
present study showed only a few associations among different measures of QoL and
suggest that patient-centered evaluations of QoL are not necessarily or strictly
related to functional status or health-related QoL. Coping strategies seem to be
significantly related to the subjects perceptions of QoL, but mostly in the
health-related domains.

Langue : ANGLAIS