Housing priorities of persons with a spinal cord injury and their household members

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the housing priorities of families living with persons with a spinal cord injury (SCI). Method: A new tool, the psycho-environmental housing priorities (PEHP), was developed following the principles of Q-methodology and based on the psycho-environmental model. The PEHP includes 48 items concerning housing needs that were presented to 29 persons with SCI and to 30 of their household members to determine the more important needs in their home. Results: Four different profiles of housing priorities emerged from the analysis, with persons with SCI and household members being dispersed across these profiles. Some needs, such as social contact and security, were identified as priorities in all the profiles while others, such as pleasure, were unique to some profiles. Conclusions: Our study highlights the heterogeneity of housing needs and the importance of addressing each family as unique when considering housing. The results also show that some housing needs ought to be considered because they were identified as important by everyone. Rehabilitation professionals could use the PEHP as a tool to help households living with a person with SCI plan their housing modifications to better meet the needs of all inhabitants.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Spinal cord injury causes impairment that significantly alters the relationship with the housing environment and modifies the relative importance of housing needs.

• Persons with SCI and household members have varying housing needs, as suggested by the identification of four distinct profiles of housing priorities using the psycho-environmental housing priorities (PEHP).

• The security and social contact needs emerge as important in all profiles and may be considered “universal needs”.

• Rehabilitation professionals may use the PEHP as a tool to help households living with a person with SCI plan their housing modifications, for instance to identify compatible and conflicting priorities, and develop solutions agreeable to everyone.

• Using PEHP in the modification process could contribute to the household’s feeling of autonomy and control.

Keywords:

• Environmental
• family
• home
• needs
• psycho-social

Acknowledgement

We thank all the participants who welcomed us into their homes and shared their personal experience. The authors also appreciate the assistance of research assistant Valérie Lafrance.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest. This study was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Grant No. 410-2006-1908.

Notes

1 a > 2.98/SQRT (n items) (loadings significant at p < 0.01).[47]

2 a2 > h2/2: “a” is a particular loading for a sort and “h2” is the sum of the squared loadings for the sort.[47]

3 w = f/(1 − f2), where f is the factor loading.