Designing accessible educational resources for people living with spinal cord injury

Abstract

Context/objective: To identify themes of interest for the production of educational resources for people with spinal cord injury (SCI).

Design: A mixed-method study.

Setting: Outpatient SCI community in Australia.

Participants: Individuals with a SCI, or carers, family & friends of people who live with a SCI (n = 116).

Interventions: Not applicable.

Outcome measures: Quantify themes of interest perceived within the Australian SCI community as necessary for the development of SCI educational resources.

Results: All seven individuals from the focus-group interviews suggested that educational resources on body physiology, secondary complications, injury pathophysiology, and health and wellbeing maintenance would be most pertinent for development. These themes (among others) were further explored and quantitatively evaluated via an online survey which demonstrated that interviewees ranked ‘Your injury’ as being of highest importance for the production of educational resources. Within each theme, the sub-categories; ‘Bowel/bladder’ and ‘What equipment is covered in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)’ were ranked as being of highest importance for the production of educational resources.

Conclusion: We have identified multiple areas of interest in the design and production of educational resources for individuals with SCI.

Keywords:

• Trauma
• Rehabilitation
• Patient education
• Interview
• Survey