Depression and Coping Strategies adopted by Caregivers of Persons with Spinal Cord Injury

Aim: To find the level of depression among persons with Spinal Cord Injury primary caregivers and also explore various coping strategies adopted by them. Design: Cross sectional study. Methodology: 100 primary caregivers were screened from Paraplegic Foundations, tertiary hospital and general population in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India for inclusion and exclusion criteria. Beck Depression Inventory and Brief COPE Inventory were used as an outcome measure to assess level of depression and various coping strategies adopted by caregivers. Result: The results of the study revealed that 23% of caregivers had significant level depression, 39% of caregivers showed moderate level depression & 40% of caregivers had low level depression. There was strong association for problem focused coping strategies (r = 0.86) and emotional focused coping strategies (r = 0.62) with total brief cope score. Conclusion: The study concludes that caregivers of individuals with SCI have high to moderate level of depression and also show significant use of emotional-focused coping strategies more than problem-focused coping strategies that affect Quality of Life of caregivers and ultimately even has a negative impact on the care provided to the care recipients and their quality of life.