Moderating Effects of Perceived Social Support On the Relationship Between the Disability Identity of Persons with Spinal Cord Injuries and Their Social Participation

Background & purpose: Persons with spinal cord injuries suffer from difficulties in social adjustment because of dysfunction, depression, and isolation due to their disability. To promote their social participation, both understanding physical and psychological impairments, and improving psychosocial factors such as coping strategies to external barriers, empowerment, social support, and anti-discrimination practice are essential. This perspective reflects universalistic approach to disability and disability identity. The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of disability identity on the social participation of persons with spinal cord injuries, and the moderating effect of perceived social support between the two. This study also examines practical intervention strategies to increase the social participation of persons with spinal cord injuries.

Methods: Nationwide data were collected from the 9 local offices of the Korea Spinal Cord Injury Association and the Korea Employment Promotion Agency for the Disabled in 2007. 297 adult participants with 1st and 2nd degree spinal cord disabilities for at least 2 years were included for the analysis. Descriptive analysis was used to investigate the characteristics of persons with spinal cord injuries, and moderated multiple regression analysis was used to examine the moderating effects of perceived social support on the relationship between the disability identity of persons with spinal cord injuries and the level of their social participation after controlling for age, gender, income, education, duration of impairment, and severity of impairment.

Results: The mean score of the pariticipants' social participation was 3.85 (SD=.96) on a 5.0 scale (strongly disagree=1 to strongly agree=5), disability identity 2.78 (SD=.36) on a 4-point scale, and perceived social support 2.65 (SD=.41) on a 4-point scale. Moderated multiple regression analysis revealed that the interaction effect of perceived social support and disability identity was significant in predicting the level of social participation of a person with spinal cord injury (F=7.934, p<.001) after controlling for socioeconomic and disability-related variables, which verifies the moderating effect of the perceived social support on the relationship between the disability identity of persons with spinal cord injuries and the level of their social participation.

Conclusion & Implications: The findings suggest that perceived social support plays an important role in promoting social participation of persons with spinal cord injuries. Disability identity was positively associated with social participation, while people with higher level of perceived social support showed more increase in social participation. Considering that disability identity increases empowerment and activeness of people with disabilities, special intervention efforts need to be directed at perceived social support, to enhance social participation of persons with disabilities.