Employment status of spinal cord injured patients 3 years after injury.

This study examined the influence of selected medical, demographic, and epidemiologic variables on the spinal cord injured patient's return to gainful employment 3 years postinjury. Discriminant analysis was the statistical method selected as most appropriate for this study. Utilizing the best combination of predictor variables, the proportion of variance in "working" and "not working" groups explained by discriminant function was 65%. These variables included sex, race, marital status, extent of lesion, preinjury employment history, high Barthel score, incidence of urinary tract infection, and completion of any business or trade school courses. Patients who returned to work were more likely to be (1) young, (2) white, (3) female, and (4) working at the time of injury, and (5) were more likely to have a high Barthel score. Among a validation sample of 34 patients, 71% were correctly classified as employed or unemployed 3 years after injury. While other determinants of vocational rehabilitation undoubtedly exist, individual potential of a given spinal cord injured patient can probably be assessed by means of a relatively small set of predictor variables.