Abstract
Study design:
Data were cross-sectional and were collected by survey methodology.
Objectives:
To investigate factors predictive of length of time between spinal cord injury (SCI) onset and start of first post-injury employment and full-time employment.
Setting:
A large specialty hospital in the Southeastern United States, with additional participant samples from two hospitals in the Midwestern United States.
Methods:
Participants were identified from patient records at the participating hospitals. They met the following three exclusion/inclusion criteria: traumatic SCI, at least 18 years of age at time of survey, and a minimum of 1-year after SCI. Outcome measures were years from injury onset to beginning first post-injury job and years to first full-time post-injury job. Two separate models were developed for each outcome using a regression analysis. All those 10 years and more post-injury were censored (that is eliminated) in the analysis.
Results:
Having a higher level of education, less severe injury, being Caucasian, and returning to the pre-injury employer were associated with a shorter interval to initiation of employment with 10-year censoring. In addition to these variables, gender was associated with time to return to first full-time job.
Conclusion:
The findings underscore the importance of using pre-injury education and opportunities to return to the pre-injury employer to minimize the length of time until initiation of employment after SCI.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by field initiated grants (H133G020239, H133G060126) from the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), the United States Department of Education. The opinions expressed here are those of the grantee and not the funding agency. We thank the following people whose contributions made completion of this article possible: Richard Aust, Dr Rickey E Carter Jennifer Coker, Karla Reed, and Yusheng Zhai, and Sarah Lottes and Christina McCleery of the Shepherd Center.
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Krause, J., Terza, J., Saunders, L. et al. Delayed entry into employment after spinal cord injury: factors related to time to first job. Spinal Cord 48, 487–491 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2009.157
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2009.157
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