Shining a light on the road towards conducting principle-based co-production research in rehabilitation.

Moving from participatory approaches incorporating co-design to co-production in health research involves a commitment to full engagement and partnership with people with lived experience through all stages of the research process-start to finish. However, despite the increased enthusiasm and proliferation of research that involves co-production, practice remains challenging, due in part to the lack of consensus on what constitutes co-production, a lack of guidance about the practical steps of applying this approach in respect to diverse research methods from multiple paradigms, and structural barriers within academia research landscape. To navigate the challenges in conducting co-produced research, it has been recommended that attention be paid to focusing and operationalising the underpinning principles and aspirations of co-production research, to aid translation into practice.

Using the consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to integrate innovation recipients' perspectives into the implementation of a digital version of the spinal cord injury health maintenance tool: a qualitative analysis.

Background: Despite advances in managing secondary health complications after spinal cord injury (SCI), challenges remain in developing targeted community health strategies. In response, the SCI Health Maintenance Tool (SCI-HMT) was developed between 2018 and 2023 in NSW, Australia to support people with SCI and their general practitioners (GPs) to promote better community self-management. Successful implementation of innovations such as the SCI-HMT are determined by a range of contextual factors, including the perspectives of the innovation recipients for whom the innovation is intended to benefit, who are rarely included in the implementation process.

Disrupted mana and systemic abdication: Māori qualitative experiences accessing healthcare in the 12 years post-injury.

Background: Māori have been found to experience marked health inequities compared to non-Māori, including for injury. Accessing healthcare services post-injury can improve outcomes; however, longer-term experiences of healthcare access for injured Māori are unknown. This paper reports on data from the longitudinal Prospective Outcomes of Injury Study - 10 year follow up (POIS-10) Māori study in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ), to qualitatively understand Māori experiences of accessing injury-related healthcare services long-term.

Early Opportunities to Explore Occupational Identity Change: Qualitative Study of Return-To-Work Experiences After Stroke.

Background: Rates of return-to-work after stroke are low, yet work is known to positively impact people's wellbeing and overall health outcomes.

Objective: To understand return-to-work trajectories, barriers encountered, and resources that may be used to better support participants during early recovery and rehabilitation.

Participants: The experiences of 31 participants (aged 25-76 years) who had or had not returned to work after stroke were explored.

Development of a Programme Theory for Early Intervention Vocational Rehabilitation: A Realist Literature Review.

Purpose Little is currently known about how early intervention vocational rehabilitation (EIVR) works for people with newly acquired neurological conditions such as traumatic brain injury, acquired brain injury and spinal cord injury. This study aims, from a realist framework, to identify relevant literature and develop an initial programme theory to understand how EIVR might work for people experiencing acquired neurological disability. Realist reviews are ideally placed to address the identified knowledge gap as they assist in gaining a deeper understanding of how the intervention works, for whom it works best, and the contexts that promote the activation of desired outcomes.

Early vocational rehabilitation for people with spinal cord injury: a research protocol using realist synthesis and interviews to understand how and why it works.

Introduction: Return to work after spinal cord injury (SCI) is linked to well-being and better physical and mental health outcomes. In New Zealand, work rates after SCI are lower than the general population. Vocational rehabilitation is one method of supporting return to work.

Access to community support workers during hospital admission for people with spinal cord injury: a pilot study.

Study Design: A descriptive qualitative study.

Objectives: To evaluate a pilot project enabling people with spinal cord injury (SCI) to have their support workers accompany them into a non-SCI specialist/public hospital (excluding ICU) to perform selected care.

Setting: The study was conducted in New Zealand.

Measuring disability: An agreement study between two disability measures.

Background: The Washington Group Short Set (WGSS) is increasingly being included in surveys worldwide to improve the quality and comparability of disability data within and between nations. However, compared to commonly employed binary impairment measures, the WGSS appears to have a relatively high threshold for disability indication. Empirical evidence is required to quantify this potential difference and its impact.

Using cannabis for pain management after spinal cord injury: a qualitative study.

Study Design: A descriptive qualitative study.

Objectives: To explore why individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) choose to use cannabis to manage their pain and their experiences in doing so.

Setting: Community-dwelling adults with SCI in New Zealand.

Relationships and the transition from spinal units to community for people with a first spinal cord injury: A New Zealand qualitative study.

Background: Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) can have substantial consequences for the injured person, and also their family/whānau (Māori word for extended family and social networks). Family members can adopt either formal or informal care roles when the person returns home, and people with high-level care requirements may also need non-family support workers.

Objective: This study considers how SCI can impact relationships during the transition from spinal rehabilitation units to home.

Respondent driven sampling of wheelchair users: A lack of traction?

Background: Internationally, wheelchair users are an emerging demographic phenomenon, due to their increased prevalence and rapidly increasing life-span. While having significant healthcare implications, basic robust epidemiological information about wheelchair users is often lacking due, in part, to this population's 'hidden' nature. Increasingly popular in epidemiological research, Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) provides a mechanism for generating unbiased population-based estimates for hard-to-reach populations, overcoming biases inherent within other sampling methods.

Attending to biographical disruption: the experience of rehabilitation following tetraplegia due to spinal cord injury.

Purpose: To explore the experience of rehabilitation from the perspective of individuals with tetraplegia.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews of between 40 and 60 min were conducted with three men and one woman, with spinal injuries at C7 or higher, within 6 months of discharge from inpatient spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation. Data were subject to an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).