Life satisfaction following spinal cord injury: long-term follow-up

To determine the course of self-reported life satisfaction in a spinal cord injury (SCI) cohort.

Prospective study using longitudinal data from the Injury Control Research Center.

Adult persons with traumatic-onset SCI (n = 207) evaluated at 1, 2, 4, and 5 years postinjury using the Life Satisfaction Index-A.

A nonsignificant (P > 0.05) main effect of time was found using a repeated-measures analysis controlling for education and employment status. Several methods were used that provided a range of liberal to conservative estimates for missing data (ie, 38% retention rate at year 5). Subsequent missing data analyses tended to corroborate the finding of a nonsignificant effect of time, although the most conservative methods showed a significant decrease in life satisfaction between year 1 and year 5 postinjury (P < 0.05). Examination of numerous demographic, injury, and treatment-related characteristics at each follow-up time point suggested that the main findings of the study were not merely the result of differential dropout rates.

Life satisfaction after the first year of injury remains largely the same over the next 4 years. Methodologic and analytic recommendations are discussed.