Long term adjustment for male spinal cord patients: exploration of an integrative approach

A spinal cord injury (SCI) produces a number of physical and psychological disruptions requiring the person to adjust. All who become disabled adjust, but there are different types and levels of adjustment. From a conceptual point of view, there are three sources of variance in adjustment: dispositions, situations, and responses. One person"s adjustment differes from another"s on the basis of the different dispositions, situations, and responses occurring for each. Data has been collected from 60 male SCI patients between the ages of 22 and 50. This study explored the relationships between the following variables: (a) dispositional - dogmatism locus of control, (b) situational - level of injury, time since onset, education at onset, occupation at onset, number of people offering social support at onset, and (c) responses - self concept, acceptance of disability, level of behavioral functioning. Correlations were computed between all variables, and 3 multiple regressions were computed using the 3 response variables as dependent variables. Major findings include the following: (a) those who are more accepting of their disability have a higher self concept, (b) those who are most dogmatic are less accepting, (c) the longer the person is disabled, the more accepting and behaviorally functioning he is, (d) the less disabled the person is, the more behaviorally functional he is, and (e) locus of control failed to significantly correlate with any of the response variables.