Assessment of anxiety in spinal cord injured patients

Pages: 66-70
Poonam Gutpa (Clinical Psychologist, Department of Psychiatry PGIMS, Rohtak, Haryana)
Shyam Sunder Gupta (Department of Orthopedics N.C. Medical College, Israna, Panipat, Haryana)
Radhey Shyam (Department of Psychology, M. D. University, Rohtak,Haryana)

Anxiety is more relevant part of patient’s life, especially of spinal cord injured (SCI) patients. The process of anxiety starts as the stress enters in the life of patients, such as seen in paraplegic patients. The present study was conducted to assess the level of anxiety in patients with spinal cord injured (SCI) patients. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant difference in the level of anxiety between SCI and Non-SCI controls and further it was hypothesized that acute SCI patients would have high level of anxiety than chronic SCI patients, whereas no such difference would be found in their respective control groups. For testing these hypotheses, an ex-post facto research with Multi-group design was done. A sample of 40 SCI patients (20 acute & 20 chronic) was selected from District Rehabilitation centre at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak on availability basis. An equal number of participants (key attendants of the SCI patients) were taken as control. Hindi version of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (A-state) by Spielberger, Sharma and Singh (1973) were administered on all the participants. Data was analyzed by t-test and Duncan’s Range Test. Findings revealed that SCI patients (acute and chronic) had more state anxiety than the Non-SCI Controls. Though the acute SCI patients had higher level of anxiety (Mean= 58.5) than the Chronic SCI patients (Mean= 50.70), yet the difference was not significant. The key attendants of Acute SCI patients had more anxiety (Mean= 42.55) than the key attendants of Chronic SCI patients (Mean= 37.2). The difference between controls of both acute and chronic groups was found to be significant at p< 0.05 level. The relevance of including key attendants as control group is discussed in the findings along with the implications of the study.