Cell telephone ownership and social integration in persons with spinal cord injury.

OBJECTIVES

To describe the prevalence and demographic characteristics associated with cell telephone ownership and to investigate whether cell telephone ownership has a positive relationship with social integration.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional.

SETTING

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Model Systems.

PARTICIPANTS

Participants (N=7696) with traumatic SCI who were entered into the National SCI Database and completed a follow-up interview from April 2004 through April 2009.

INTERVENTIONS

None.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Cell telephone ownership; Craig Handicap Assessment Reporting Technique Social Integration subscale.

RESULTS

A total of 73% of participants owned a cell telephone. Persons who were younger, employed, achieved education beyond grade school, and had computer and e-mail access were more likely to own cell telephones. Not owning a cell telephone decreased the likelihood of belonging to the high-social-integration group compared with the low-integration group (odds ratio, .509; 95% confidence interval, .396-.654). Persons with low or medium social integration scores were less likely to own a cell telephone than those who had high social integration scores.

CONCLUSION

In this study, most participants owned a cell telephone, although 27% did not compared with 13% nonowners in the general population. Owning a cell telephone increased the likelihood of being more socially integrated compared with non-cell telephone ownership.