Patients’ experiences with goal setting during initial rehabilitation after newly acquired spinal cord injury: A pilot qualitative interview study

Abstract

Objective

To explore patients’ experiences with goal setting during initial rehabilitation after newly acquired spinal cord injury/disorder (SCI/D).

Design

Qualitative design with semi-structured interviews and purposively sampled participants. Interviews were transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were analyzed for qualitative content analysis using the Mayring method.

Setting

Specialized acute care and rehabilitation center for SCI/D-patients.

Participants

Patients in initial rehabilitation after a newly acquired SCI/D.

Interventions

n.a.

Outcome measures

n.a.

Results

Ten participants were interviewed in the post-acute phase after a newly acquired SCI/D. Participants described individual patient characteristics as well as organizational elements influencing their experience with goal setting. Organizational elements comprised structural elements (e.g. ward rounds, rehabilitation meetings, etc.) and interaction with and among the interprofessional teams. Perspectives from various health care professionals (HCPs) were perceived as increasing adequate goal setting and motivation. Furthermore, the participants described their own involvement and motivation as crucial for goal achievement. The main point of the critique was the standardization of the goal setting process. Interviewees would have preferred individualized goal setting embedded in a clearly foreseeable rehabilitation plan.

Conclusion

Organization and collaboration with and among the HCPs should be geared towards identifying specific patient needs during the course of rehabilitation and deriving individually tailored goals from them. Communication plays an important role in the individual goal setting.

Keywords:

• Goal setting
• Rehabilitation
• Patient care team
• Interprofessional team
• Spinal cord injuries

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all our participants for their time and valuable insight. Furthermore, we are grateful to Esther Peter, Anna Schär and Bart de Kimpe as part of the development core team for the IPT in the clinic for sharing their expertise. Lastly, we are thankful to Rebecca Tomaschek and Joanne Wieland-Burston for their English language editing and grammar review.

Disclaimer statements

Contributors Patricia Lampart: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Validation, Writing – Original draft, Visualization Florin Häusler: Conceptualization, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation Wolf Langewitz: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – Review & Editing Sara Rubinelli: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Supervision Diana Sigrist-Nix: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Resources, Funding acquisition Anke Scheel-Sailer: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Supervision, Project administration.

Funding None.

Competing interests The authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.

Ethics approval and consent to participate The study was approved by the institutional research board and the responsible ethical committee (Ethikkommission Nordwest – und Zentralschweiz, EKNZ 2019-01842). The authors confirm all patient/personal identifiers have been removed or disguised so that the patient/person(s) described are not identifiable and cannot be identified through the details of the story.

Availability of data and material Original data is stored at the corresponding author.