The Relationship Between Wheelchair Mobility Patterns and Community Participation Among Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury

Participation is considered the most meaningful outcome of rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there were correlations between wheelchair activity recorded with a data logger and community participation as measured by the Participation Survey/Mobility. Data from 16 participants were included in this study. Data collected during a two week period using a data logging device were analyzed to determine the mobility characteristics of participants. Among manual wheelchair users, significant positive correlations were found between average speed traveled and the community participation content areas of transportation (rs = .837, p = .019) and socialization (rs = .772, p = .042). In addition, for manual wheelchair users there was a trend toward a significant correlation between average speed traveled and total community participation score (rs = .714, p = .071). Among power wheelchair users, there was a trend toward a significant negative correlation between average speed traveled and the community participation content area of leisure activity (rs = −.635, p = .066). Understanding the relationship between wheelchair speed and community participation can be useful information to enable clinicians to recommend the most appropriate mobility devices designed to enhance community participation.