Availability and need of home adaptations for personal mobility among individuals with spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVE

To identify the availability and unmet need of home adaptations (HAs) among the Swiss population with spinal cord injury (SCI).

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Swiss Spinal Cord Injury Community Survey 2012.

PARTICIPANTS

Individuals aged 16 or older with chronic SCI living in Switzerland.

INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable.

OUTCOME MEASURES: The availability of ten HAs (self-report) was analyzed by sex, age, living situation, indoor mobility, SCI severity, SCI etiology and time since SCI. The unmet need (self-report of not having a HA but needing it) of HAs was analyzed by financial hardship.

RESULTS

Among the 482 study participants (mean age 55.2 years, standard deviation 15.0 years, 71.6% males), 85.1% had at least one HA. The most frequent HA was a wheelchair accessible shower (62.7%). Availability of HAs markedly varied with indoor mobility (e.g. 38.4% of participants using a wheelchair had a stair lift compared to 17.4% of those walking) and with SCI severity (e.g. 54.8% of those with complete paraplegia had a wheelchair accessible kitchen worktop compared to 26.0% of those with incomplete paraplegia). Unmet need was highest for adjustable kitchen worktops (78.7% of those with a need) and adjustable kitchen cabinets (75.7%) and lowest for wheelchair accessible showers (9.4%) and grab bars next to the toilet (8.5%). No significant differences in unmet need were found when stratifying for financial hardship.

CONCLUSION

Availability of HAs is dependent on indoor mobility and SCI severity. There is a considerable degree of unmet need for selected HAs, which couldn't be explained by financial hardship.