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Published on: June 16, 2016
Correlates of Loneliness in Persons With Spinal Cord Injury
Alexander Barry1, Linda Lovell1, Elliot Roth2
1Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Chicago, IL.
Objective:
To determine self-reported psychosocial factors that may be associated with loneliness in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI).
Design And Setting:
Convergent parallel virtual structured interviews and quantitative questionnaires.
Participants:
People with traumatic spinal cord injury >1 year prior (questionnaire data from n=20).
Main Outcome Measures:
Three-Item Loneliness Scale, Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors (CHIEF), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), Short Form-12 (SF-12).
Results:
Higher levels of loneliness correlated with increased environmental barriers (CHIEF r=0.7, P=.001) and more depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 r=0.67, P=.001), whereas environmental barriers also contributed to worse mental health outcomes (SF-12, Mental Component Score [MCS] r=-0.7, P=.004).
Conclusions:
Loneliness in people with traumatic spinal cord injury is likely related to both internal and external factors.
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