Impact of Psychosocial Resources on Mental Health During the Transition From the Initial Rehabilitation to Community: The Case of Spinal Cord Injury.

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to examine the change in mental health from the clinical to community setting in persons with spinal cord injury and to identify the role of psychosocial resources for this transition.

DESIGN

Longitudinal survey self-report data from N = 240 persons with spinal cord injury from the Swiss Spinal Cord Injury Cohort study.

RESULTS

Latent profile analysis identified three profiles for each the clinical and the community setting: low, medium, and high mental health load. Latent transition analysis revealed that persons with spinal cord injury were most likely to stay in the same profile from discharge of initial rehabilitation to community, followed by a decrease from a high mental health load to a medium mental health load and an increase from a low mental health load to a medium mental health load. Individuals staying in the low mental health load profile showed significantly higher levels of psychosocial resources compared to individuals increasing to the medium mental health load profile, whereas individuals who stayed in the high mental health load profile showed lower levels of psychosocial resources compared to individuals decreasing to the medium mental health load profile.

CONCLUSIONS

This study highlights a positive role of psychosocial resources on mental health transitions, underlining the need for strengthening psychosocial resources beyond initial rehabilitation.