Illness perception of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) during inpatient rehabilitation: a longitudinal study

Study design: Multicentre longitudinal study.

Objectives: To assess overall illness perception and specific illness representations at admission and discharge of inpatient spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation, and to detect associations between demographic and injury-related variables, and illness perception.

Setting: Seven Dutch SCI-specialised rehabilitation centres.

Methods: Participants aged >18 years with a recent SCI were screened for cognitive and emotional illness representations at admission and discharge with the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ). Differences between B-IPQ item scores at admission and discharge were analysed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Differences between B-IPQ total scores were analysed with the paired-samples t-test. Associations between B-IPQ total scores and other variables were tested with bivariable and multivariable regression analyses.

Results: B-IPQ results were available for 270 participants at admission (71% male, 59% paraplegia, 83% incomplete) and 119 at discharge (68% male, 50% paraplegia, 78% incomplete). The extent to which people experienced their SCI as a threat was highest for: ‘consequences’, ‘symptom burden’ and ‘concern’ both at admission and discharge. Participants generally experienced less threat at discharge. A more threatening illness perception was significantly associated with older age, complete SCI and a history of cognitive problems at admission. Age and completeness of injury, together, explained 12% of the variance of overall illness perception at admission.

Conclusions: For most individuals, illness perception positively changed during SCI rehabilitation. Measuring illness perception in inpatient rehabilitation could support the identification of specific treatment goals in order to improve adjustment after SCI.