| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 衛生福利研究所 === 96 === Abstract
Recently, due to the improvement of medication, limbs handicap of people with spinal cord injury is usually permanent. Thus, the pressure from physical function and psychological state often affect the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury. The purpose of this research is to understand the status of welfare and living quality of injured individuals who have joined the Association for the Spinal Cord Injured in all cities and counties of Taiwan. Hopefully, research result can provide references for people who work for people with physical or psychological disabilities and government department when establishing related service and policies. Research is the investigation of transverse; the investigation is processed by structural questionnaires and focus group method. A total of 249 questionnaires from individuals with spinal cord injury and data from 48 group members are collected. Questionnaires are analyzed via mean, percentage, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, multiple regression, etc; focus group is analyzed via word by word.
The main research result shows:
Aspect of welfare need: In the part of questionnaires, due to the severity of body injury, lack of career opportunities and other environmental factors, individuals with spinal cord injury cannot get employed successfully, so most of them expected to receive financial aids. Since most of them rely on wheelchair to move around, financial assistance on equipments; assistance on transportation; and barrier-free environment are what most in need. For individuals who needs employment, if there is increase in career training, types of career opportunities and supportive career assistance, their employment will be more successful. For individuals who cannot work and ought to stay home for long period of time, they hope to have assistance related to nursing; improvement on barrier-free environment; and service related to short-term nursing, etc. Regardless of the severity of injury, sex and age, all of them hope to have opportunity to participate in leisure activities and gatherings. In the part of focus group, individuals with spinal cord injury hope related government departments and the general public can have further understanding on “spinal cord injury”. Hopefully, there is place especially for individual with spinal cord injury; besides having company, they can also receive assistance from professions. For individuals who are severely physical handicap, they need adequate nursing service from social workers in order to decrease the pressure of their caregiver.
In the aspect of quality of life, in the part of questionnaires, the quality of life of individuals with spinal cord injury in Taiwan is generally lower than ordinary people; the overall categories of quality of life is related to the severity of injury, time and age of the injury, and residual; the overall categories of health are more related to sex, residual; the need of nursing, rehabilitation treatment and barrier-free will affect factors such as physical health, psychological and social relationship, etc. In the part of focus group, group members thinks pain and discomfort, financial resources, friends, family, equipment aids, barrier-free environment, transportation, sexual life, being respected and accepted, opportunity to participate in entertainment and leisure activity and physical safety and insurance are all factors that influence the quality of life of individual with spinal cord injury.
Regarding this research, the following suggestions are proposed: 1) for government policy establishment: to establish an integral report system for individual with spinal cord injury; each county and city can establish an barrier-free traffic network; improve the procedures of applying equipment and flexible financial aids; and establish nursing organization that especially for individual with spinal cord injury. 2) For medical system: to develop a role of public hygiene and establish an integral educational plan for enhancing health; implement a plan that help patients prepare to leave hospital. 3) For association of spinal cord injured: to organize the outcome of service in the past years, and develop the existing value of the association; to discover individuals who have the potential of experiencing spinal cord injury. 4) For social workers: to assist individuals with spinal cord injury to develop a customized service method; assist their family to build up a support system. Suggestions for future research are: the needs of females with spinal code injury, and compare the needs and quality of life of individuals who joined the Association of spinal cord injury and individuals who did not join the Association of spinal cord injured; and to develop research of local professional service for individuals with spinal cord injury.
Keywords: Spinal cord injury; Service for physical and psychological disables; Welfare need; Quality of Life
|
|---|
