Correlations between pain, functioning, and quality of life in manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury
Mokgadi Kholofelo Mashola, Elzette Korkie, Diphale Joyce Mothabeng
Abstract
Pain after spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the most important contributors to poor rehabilitation outcomes, reduced quality of life (QOL) as well as poorer physical, social, and psychological functioning.
Introduction
Pain is a commonly prevalent and significant health problem in both the general and spinal cord injury (SCI) population. Up to 94% of people with spinal cord injury (PWSCI) experience nociceptive and/or neuropathic pain, and at least one-third will have severe pain [1–3].
Materials and methods
This study used a quantitative approach and a correlational design. Databases of four consenting rehabilitation hospitals (one private and three government) that admit PWSCI were perused to identify potential manual wheelchair users with paraplegia for participation in the study.
Results
A total of 122 PWSCI participated in the study and the mean age of participants in this study was 39.7 years (SD 11.1) and the mean age when injured was 32.6 years (SD 10.7), while the mean years living with SCI was 7.1 years (SD 7.1).
Discussion
The high presence of overall pain in our study is unsurprising, given that pain after SCI is common [1,3,29], and PWSCI who experience pain are at an increased risk of poorer functioning as compared to those without pain [29].
Conclusion
This study underscores available findings that pain is a problematic SHC in PWSCI. Pain prevents PWSCI from doing what they need to do and they are not optimally satisfied with their health. Increased severity of pain not only reduces sleep satisfaction but is negatively correlated with QOL.
Citation: Mashola MK, Korkie E, Mothabeng DJ (2025) Correlations between pain, functioning, and quality of life in manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injury. PLoS One 20(5): e0324850. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324850
Editor: Yih-Kuen Jan, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Received: June 12, 2024; Accepted: April 30, 2025; Published: May 29, 2025
Copyright: © 2025 Mashola et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: Raw data for this study is available from the University of Pretoria’s Physiotherapy Department and the administrator can be contacted at +27(0)123563054 (liana.slippers@up.ac.za). The raw data has personal information that can identify the participants and requests for data needs to abide by South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act of 2013. The purpose of the POPI Act is to provide an individual the constitutional right to privacy, by safeguarding personal information. The University of Pretoria’s Research Ethics Committee administrator can be contacted at +27(0)12 319 2409 or +27(0)012 356 3084/3085 (manda.smith@up.ac.za) to request access to this data.
Funding: This study was partially funded by the Southern African Spinal Cord Association (SASCA) in 2018 and was funded by the National Research Fund (NRF) Thuthuka grant (TTK180416321193) from 2019 to 2020. The Female Academic Leaders Fellowship (FALF) funded the time to write this manuscript, as well as its publication costs. The views and findings expressed in this manuscript are solely the responsibility of the authors. The funding bodies played no role in the design or data collection of the study, nor the writing of this manuscript.
Competing interests: I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Co-author Prof DJ Mothabeng, is one of the academic editors of PLOS One.
