Community integration of adults with disabilities post discharge from an in-patient rehabilitation unit in the Western Cape.

The study analysed 59 participants from a population of 188 discharged patients, and 49 could not be located, so the sample may not represent everyone leaving this centre. People who could not consent, lived in care facilities, could not speak English, Afrikaans or Xhosa, or could not complete a telephone questionnaire because of speech-language or cognitive impairment were excluded, so people with communication or cognitive difficulties may be missing. The small sample forced grouping of different diagnoses and ages, so differences between specific conditions are not clear. Employment was not recorded, even though work or meaningful activities was the lowest-scoring domain. Participants were assessed only 7 to 9 months after discharge at one government centre, so results may not apply to other times or settings. The study was descriptive, so it reports scores rather than showing whether an intervention changed community integration.

Do not conclude that inpatient rehabilitation was ineffective or that spinal cord injury leads to better community integration. This was a descriptive study with a small sample, and the diagnostic differences were not statistically significant (p = 0.15).