Social participation and personal autonomy of individuals with spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate, based on scientific literature, evidence on social participation and personal autonomy of individuals with spinal cord injury.

METHOD: Integrative review of the literature including studies published between January 2006 and September 2016, obtained in the databases PubMed, CINAHL and LILACS. The guiding question was: "What evidence is available in the scientific literature about the social participation and/or personal autonomy of individuals with spinal cord injury?" The data were processed by IRaMuTeQ and analyzed by the Hierarchical Descending Classification, according to the expertise of the researchers.

RESULTS

Six selected studies discussed social participation, one discussed personal autonomy and two discussed both. 107 text segments were retained and gave rise to five classes.

CONCLUSION

There is little specificity regarding the characteristics of social participation and personal autonomy of individuals with spinal cord injury. The existence of barriers forces them to adopt strategies to participate autonomously.