ESTIMATING SOCIAL-ADJUSTMENT FOLLOWING SPINAL TRAUMA .2. POPULATION TRENDS AND EFFECTS OF COMPENSATION ON ADJUSTMENT

Adaptation to, or acceptance of, acquired spinal cord injury is accept ed as an essentially longitudinal process. Changes in an individual's social, financial and domestic positions in turn affect issues concern ing quality of life and self-image. The responses of 302 individuals w ith spinal cord injury in the United Kingdom and United States of Amer ica are presented to produce individual profiles of social adjustment. The differences between the UK and USA groups are presented, together with a combined analysis which addresses, in particular, the effects which being involved in litigation has on the process of social adjust ment. Individual data concerning social adjustment, provided through a scale developed by the authors, and the utility of graphical presenta tion of the data is also presented. Such presentation has been found t o have particular importance in clinical interview, situations by prov iding a framework for further exploration of individual adjustment dif ficulties, and in legal settings.