Internet education for spinal cord injury patients: focus on urinary management

The goal of this project was to develop a Web site with articles that focus on urinary self-care management for those with spinal cord injuries. The investigator wrote 18 articles on topics that were selected by two review panels--one whose members have long-term spinal cord injuries and another consisting of rehabilitation nurses. The panel members critically reviewed the articles for content and topic. After revisions, nine of the 18 articles were translated from English into Spanish and then translated back into English to ensure accuracy. Consumers were asked to rate their satisfaction with the articles on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest. There were a total of 1,162 hits on the Web site during a period of 13 months; 811 were for the Spanish articles, and 351 were for the English articles. The mean rating score for the articles was 8.02, with a standard deviation of 1.38. These findings are consistent with reports that the Internet can provide both user-friendly education for those living with disabilities and culturally sensitive health information for those who have limited access to other sources of information.