title: Depression and Quality of Life in Patients within the First 6 Months after the Spinal Cord Injury.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the severity of depression, degree of life satisfaction, level of stress, and resilience among patients in the first 6 months after a spinal cord injury (SCI).
  
  
  METHODS
  36 patients with SCI were asked to fill out questionnaires concerning Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-BREF, Stress Response Inventory, and Connor-Davidson resilience scale. All patients had experienced an SCI within the last 6 months before the commencement of this study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In our study, the patients who experienced the SCI within the last six months had a higher rate of depression (63.9%) and a higher overall level of depression (13.8 points). The unmarried group had a significantly higher quality of life (QOL; p<0.05) when compared with the married group. In the motor complete group, severity of depression and level of stress were higher, whereas QOL was lower than the motor incomplete group (p<0.05). The mean American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Motor Score (AMS) was much higher in the non-depressive group (p<0.05) when compared with the depressive group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found the patients within six months after SCI injury had higher rate of depression and higher overall level of depression. Also, patients with motor complete injury had affected significantly on depression, QOL and stress. We found the married patients had poorer QOL and depressive group had lower AMS score of lower extremity. Therefore, there should be emphasis of psychological care who have motor complete injury and are married during the early stage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and Research Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 120-752, Korea.
authors.forename: Ji Cheol
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Hae Rin
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Goo
authors.forename: Su Jin
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Dae Hyun
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Seo Yeon
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Yoon