News
Mental health and spinal cord injury
How’s your mental health?
It’s a weighty question and probably not one you’re asked every day. Whether you’ve experienced mental health problems or not, we really need your honest answers for a landmark study with the potential to reshape mental health services for spinal cord injured (SCI) people in the UK. And perhaps there’s no better time than Mental Health Awareness Week to finally address the issue.
We’re delighted that SCI people’s mental health is being put front and centre thanks to this research being conducted by the University of Reading and even better, that we’re invited to be at the forefront of it. But we need your voices for this research to make a difference.
What we’re doing
• Online surveys measuring things like resilience, life satisfaction and coping strategies and details on any existing mental health services available to you. You can take the main survey here.
• One-to-one interviews examining individual mental health issues, and determining how available and efficient existing services are
• Focus groups with the ‘significant others’ (partners, spouses, friends etc) of SCI people with mental health issues, to better understand any changes in mental wellbeing and how effective services have been. Also, to gain insights into how this impacts those significant others.
Your experiences count
With your input, it’s hoped the findings from this research will help improve how mental health services are delivered.
To get involved or for more information, you can email Dr Katherine Finlay, who is leading the research at University of Reading. You can access the survey itself here
Prizes on offer
There’s even an incentive for taking part, with all participants getting offered the chance to enter a draw for £100, £50 and £25 shopping vouchers.
With the coronavirus pandemic creating an unprecedented national mental health crisis, this is our chance to steer the focus to issues within the SCI community – and your experiences count.