Leisure repertoire among persons with a spinal cord injury: Interests, performance, and well-being

Objective: To explore and describe the leisure repertoire of persons with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) and how the repertoire is related to interest, performance, and well-being. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: A total of 97 persons with traumatic SCI were recruited from the non-profit national organization, RG Active Rehabilitation in Sweden. Outcome measure: Data were collected through a two-part postal survey. The first comprised of questions investigating socio-demographic variables and injury characteristics; the second part included an interest checklist with 20 areas of leisure activities. Results: The participants were mostly interested in, performed, and experienced well-being from social and culture activities and TV/DVD/movies. The areas of leisure activities in which they had most likely experienced changes after the SCI were outdoor activities, exercise, and gardening. Sex, age, and to some extent, time since injury were related to interest, performance, well-being, and changed performance. Conclusions: The results provided an explanation and limited description of a changed leisure repertoire among persons after a traumatic SCI. The study showed that sex, age, and time since injury were more closely related to the choice of leisure activities to include in the leisure repertoire than the level of injury. This knowledge can be of importance when professionals in the field of rehabilitation are planning and implementing interventions concerning leisure activities for persons with SCI.