Resilience After Spinal Cord Injury: A Scoping Review

Rehabilitation medicine has recently embraced resilience, and research in this area has surged within the past decade. Several systematic reviews of resilience research have been conducted in traumatic brain injury, chronic diseases, and stroke populations. A decade into research into the role of resilience in the lives of individuals with spinal cord injury, a review of the current state of the research literature is needed to identify trends and knowledge gaps. The aims of this scoping review were (a) to classify study methods and designs used for resilience research in spinal cord injury to date, (b) to describe how researchers have defined "resilience," and (c) to identify knowledge gaps and suggest future directions for research. Literature searches were conducted to identify English-language, peer-reviewed articles on resilience and spinal cord injury. Most of the 40 studies reviewed were correlational using cross-sectional data, although descriptive, longitudinal, qualitative, test development, and intervention studies and review articles were found as well. As is the case outside of rehabilitation medicine, there is considerable definitional and conceptual heterogeneity that limits our ability to apply resilience research to clinical practice. Moving forward, the field needs model-driven, longitudinal research that offers clear, conceptual distinctions between risk and protective factors, processes, and outcomes.