Predicting employment status at 2 years' postdischarge from spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

OBJECTIVES: This exploratory study examined the extent to which postinjury employment was predictable when patients were followed up 2 years' postdischarge from a specialist Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Unit. PARTICIPANTS AND DESIGN: Seventy-two individuals with SCI for whom there were discharge Functional Independence Measure (FIM) scores, 60 complete sets of data were available for Discriminant Function Analysis. RESULTS: Using a combination of variables assessed prior to or shortly after discharge from rehabilitation, complemented by psychosocial variables assessed at the time of follow-up, moderate classification accuracy was achieved with respect to employment status at the 2-year follow-up period (72%), with the set of predictor variables being more accurate at predicting those subsequently in paid employment (83%) than those not (67%). CONCLUSIONS: The main implication of the study results is that nontraditional variables (i.e., variables other than injury and demographic variables), including, particularly, contextual environmental variables such as community integration, access to transport, and social support, are worthy of further research, especially because many of these are amenable to rehabilitation program interventions, and thus may facilitate the attainment of enhanced rates of postdischarge employment among those living with SCI.