Health Professionals' Experience of Barriers in Empowering People with Spinal Cord Injury: a Qualitative Inquiry.

Introduction: Empowering an individual with spinal cord injury as far as possible is an experience with various social and cultural aspects. This study investigated health professionals' experiences of barriers in empowering individuals with spinal cord injuries. Methods: This was a qualitative inquiry with a conventional content analysis approach. A number of 11 healthcare professionals who were members of Iran Spinal Cord Injuries Research National Network or had been working in a related research center for at least three years participated in the study. A purposive sampling method was applied until reaching data saturation. The data were collected by semi-structured interviews. The collected data were managed with MAXQDA software version 13. Results: Three main themes as barriers in empowering people with spinal cord injury emerged: 1) Lack of patient-and-family-centered education, 2) Failure in providing sufficient healthcare services and 3) Inappropriate setting for using rehabilitation services. Conclusion: These finding can help policymakers to provide better social facilities and more support services for people with spinal cord injuries and their families. Further research is needed to investigate barriers to empowerment from the perspective of individuals with SCI and their families.

Activities of daily living independence in Iranian blind war survivors: a cross sectional study, 2008.

AIM: Assessment of activities of daily living (ADL) can be helpful for designing individualized rehabilitation programs for disabled individuals. Measuring and comparing the basic ADL (BADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL) independence between middle aged and senior Iranian blind war survivors (IBWS) was the aim of this study. METHODS: This cross-sectional study assessed BADL and IADL of 312 blind war survivors, using the Barthel Index and the Lawton-Bordy scale. Data collection was carried out in a recreational event for the blind war survivors in Mashhad, Iran, 2008. RESULTS: The majority of the participants were male (99%), and more than 80% had multiple injuries. None of them were independent in all BADL and IADL. Older groups were more dependent in IADL such as telephone use, drug management, financial management, and BADL such as walking on uneven surfaces, bed/chair transfer and using stairs. The functional status and activities' level differences between those aged younger than 50 years and those aged older than 50 years were significant (P<0.05). DISCUSSION: In the present study, all the IBWS were dependent in at least one ADL. Multiple physical injuries could be one of the main reasons for the dependency in this group. IBWS aged older than 50 years were considerably more dependent in their BADL and IADL than the younger group. It appears that starting the fifth decade of age in IBWS might cause some considerable decrease in their function. Training and individualized rehabilitation programs are warranted.

The Persian version of the Berg Balance Scale: inter and intra-rater reliability and construct validity in elderly adults.

PURPOSE: As a well-known measure for quantifying functional mobility in elderly persons, Berg Balance Scale (BBS) was used in the present study to evaluate its psychometric properties among a sample of 106 elderly individuals speaking Persian language. METHOD: After forward-backward translation process, videotapes were recorded from all participants while performing 14 tasks of the BBS. The volunteers were also asked to perform the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test at the same session. To determine inter and intra-rater reliability, the videotapes were viewed by two experienced therapists while one of the raters assessed the videotaped performance of the subjects on a second occasion. RESULTS: Intraclass correlation coefficients (95% confidence interval) of 0.93 (0.87 0.96) and 0.95 (0.92 0.97) were obtained for inter and intra-rater reliability, respectively. Cronbach's alpha was 0.62 which is marginally lower than the cut-off point of 0.70. Furthermore, there were no ceiling and floor effects for the Persian version. In terms of construct validity, the BBS had a negative and strong correlation with the TUG (r = -0.74, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Acceptable levels of intra and inter-rater reliability with a moderate internal consistency and high validity were demonstrated for the Persian version of BBS.