Attending to biographical disruption: the experience of rehabilitation following tetraplegia due to spinal cord injury

Abstract

Purpose: To explore the experience of rehabilitation from the perspective of individuals with tetraplegia. Methods: Semi-structured interviews of between 40 and 60 min were conducted with three men and one woman, with spinal injuries at C7 or higher, within 6 months of discharge from inpatient spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation. Data were subject to an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results: Participants described their injuries as more than a biological impairment that limited certain functional abilities. For them, SCI was a sudden event that also disrupted one’s “life biography”. Interviews uncovered three key themes essential to an individual’s ability to restore feelings of self-agency and biographical continuity: The importance of information, regaining control, and restoring a sense of personal narrative. Conclusion: Findings from studies using IPA have much to contribute to discussion and debate at the level of rehabilitation theory and can guide future research directions. The findings of the present study support a growing body of literature that argues that rehabilitation research needs to focus more intensely on the biographical disruption caused by SCI.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Participants in the present study experienced a significant disruption to their biographical narratives following a SCI as they entered an unknown and uncertain world.

• The findings from the present study provide an evidence-base that is best applied to discussion regarding psychosocial adjustment at the level rehabilitation theory.

• The concepts of identity and biographical disruption are appearing more frequently in qualitative literature and both merit further investigation to assess their prevalence among the wider SCI populations.

• Biographical disruption
• consumer perspective
• existential disruption
• rehabilitation
• spinal cord injury
• tetraplegia

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the participants in this study.

Declaration of interest

I (J. B.) would like to acknowledge the University of Otago for granting me a Masters scholarship that enabled the completion of this study. The three co-authors report no declarations of interest.