Coping effectiveness training for people with spinal cord injury: preliminary results of a controlled trial

To develop and evaluate a brief group-based psychological intervention for improving psychological adjustment and enhancing adaptive coping following spinal cord injury. The Coping Effectiveness Training (CET) programme is grounded on the cognitive theory of stress and coping of Lazarus & Folkman (1984), and represents an original adaptation of the theory to the needs of this client group.

A controlled trial comparing patients receiving the CET intervention to matched controls in measures of psychological adjustment and coping was used.

Nineteen intervention group participants and 19 matched controls were selected from in-patients at a hospital-based spinal injury rehabilitation centre. Outcome measures of depression, anxiety and coping were collected before, immediately after and six weeks after the intervention.

Intervention group participants showed significantly greater reductions in levels of depression (p < .01) and anxiety (p < .05) compared to matched controls immediately after the intervention and at six weeks follow-up. There was no evidence of a significantly greater change in the coping strategies used by the intervention group. Participants highlighted their interactions with other group members as the most helpful aspect of the intervention.

This evidence suggests that the CET intervention facilitated a significant improvement, in psychological adjustment to spinal cord injury. It is proposed this may be understood in terms of changes in participants' appraisal of the implications of spinal cord injury and of the coping skills needed to continue living meaningful and satisfying lives.