Motivations to Travel in the Next Year of People with New and Long-Term Spinal Cord Injury

Research Objectives: To identify the motivation of people with new and long-term SCI for traveling long-distance in the next 12 months

Design: A multi-site cross-sectional study

Setting: Community

Participants: Registrants (N1=78) in the Rocky Mountain Regional Spinal Injury System with SCI for at least 5 years (long-term) and patients (N2=36) 2-4 months post-discharge from the Shepherd Center (new).

Interventions: N/A

Main Outcome Measures: Five categories of travel motivation were measured with scales developed based on self-determination theory (SDT): intrinsic (enjoyment of traveling), identified (recognition of travel’s benefits), introjected (feeling guilty if not traveling), external (traveling at others’ requests) and amotivation (lack of motivation). The likelihood of travelling in the next 12 months was also measured. All measures were on a 5-point Likert-type scale.

Results: The two groups didn’t differ on the mean scores of the five motivation types (t values ranged from -1.66 to 1.00, all p>0.1), with intrinsic motivation being the highest, followed by identified, introjected, external and amotivation. Individuals with new injury were less likely to travel in the next 12 months than those with long-term SCI (t=3.09, p<.05), although over half of them (52.8%) reported they would definitely travel or likely travel. Hierarchical regression analysis showed for people with new injury, external motivation had a significant positive relationship (β=.513, SE=.211) and amotivation a negative relationship (β=-.554, SE=.232) with the likelihood to travel. The two motives explained 26.8% of the variance in the likelihood to travel, controlling for income (F=5.86, p<.05). For people with long-term SCI, intrinsic (β=.206, SE=.212) and identified (β=.133, SE=.242) were significantly positively related to the likelihood to travel, while amotivation had a significant negative relationship (β=-.612, SE=.175). The three motives explained 33.7% of the variance in the likelihood to travel, controlling for income (F=13.56, p<.001).

Conclusions: Although people still have desires to travel after SCI, when first injured, they mostly travel at others’ requests. As people live with SCI longer, they are able to enjoy travel for intrinsic and identified motivation.

Author(s) Disclosures: Nothing to disclose.