Experience in work environment of people with spinal cord injury who returns in community after completing rehabilitation from CRP

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the study to explore the experiences and perspective of people with paraplegia regarding gaining and keeping a job in the community, following spinal cord injury after completing rehabilitation, specifically employer‟s attitude, physical accessibility, transportation, health and psychological issue. Methodology: Convenient qualitative type of study design and semi-structured faceto-face explorative type of interview. Study setting was Participant‟s house and their work environment. Grounded Theory was used in this study for data analysis. It was done according to coding and categorization to make themes. The analysis of data begins with transcriptions of the entire interviews from voice recorder and written documents. The study was conducted in different communities among paraplegia SCI people. Grounded theory was used to know about the experiences of the persons with paraplegia about challenges related to their employment in the community. Results: Among the four participants three were able to gain employment and remaining one participant try to established self-employment. All of the participants perceived difficulties in transportation, accommodation facilities, inaccessible wheelchair environment and workplace discrimination in the general workplace. Later on two of the participants experienced a fully wheelchair accessible environment at their current office campus and that was a rehabilitation center and a NGO. Self-employment participant experienced negative attitudes from working environment. Depression and financial crisis are vital barrier for returning to work for uneducated or little educated person. Pressure ulcer has experienced who work for a long time. Bowl-bladder incontinence was another vital barrier for returning to work. More over lack of job assistance, financial support, health and rehab support at the community level were also identified in the study. Conclusion: Results point to the need for rehabilitation professionals to make special efforts to maximize employability after SCI.

Key words: Spinal cord injury, employment, returns to work.