Understanding care-related abuse and neglect in the lives of women with SCI.

Abuse and neglect of women with spinal cord injury (SCI) is a serious health issue. To begin to understand the nature of this problem an interpretive phenomenological study of abuse of women with SCI was conducted. A sample of 13 women who had experienced abuse post-injury participated in a total of 24 in-depth interviews. Analytic strategies employed included thematic analysis, exemplars, biographical comparisons, and paradigm cases. The analysis yielded four major categories including (a) abuse and neglect-definitions and types, (b) vulnerability factors, (c) behavioral responses to abuse, and (d) health effects. This research report reviews findings from the first category, abuse definitions and types. Findings indicate that care-related forms of abuse and neglect are particularly common in the lives of women with SCI.