References
The meaning of hope for individuals with spinal cord injury in Brazil
Abstract
Aim:
To understand the meaning of hope among individuals with spinal cord injury.
Design:
A qualitative study employing the ethnographic method was used, with 18 individuals.
Method:
Participant observation was chosen to understand individuals with spinal cord injury and interviews were used to elicit information about the hope experience. The data were analysed using Ernst Bloch's theory of hope.
Findings:
Participants constructed their own personality and sense of self, including their hopes for their future, based on their life before their injury. Life after experiencing spinal cord injury highlighted the limitations and potentialities of their hopes. Using a sense of hope to establish goals for the future helped participants overcome obstacles.
Conclusion:
Hope in people with spinal cord injury helped them cope with the fundamental changes to their daily lives. Hope played an important role in articulating coping strategies and setting and achieving goals. These findings may help nurses understand the limits and potentialities of hope as an instigator of goals in the daily life of individuals with spinal cord injury.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCS) (2013) described spinal cord injury (SCI) as a medically complex, life-disrupting and life-long clinical condition. According to a report on disability around the world (WHO, 2011), an estimated 600 million individuals worldwide have some form of disability, 2% of whom are considered to be physically disabled (Babamohamadi et al, 2011). In Brazil, a census conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) (2010) stated that about 45.6 million Brazilians have some type of disability. Some 7% have a physical disability, including those with paraplegia, tetraplegia, hemiplegia, lack of a limb or part of a limb, have difficulties in walking or an inability to walk.
The incidence of SCI has been estimated as between 9 and 50 cases per million in Brazil (IBGE, 2010); thus, SCI appears to be a serious public health concern affecting quality of life (Monden et al, 2014), which is reinforced by its high incidence among young male adults, reflecting a significant level of urban violence (Nogueira et al, 2016).
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