Meaning of Work Participation After Spinal Cord Injury in Bangladesh: A Qualitative Study in a Low- and Middle-Income Country Context.

The study was done with people connected to one specialised rehabilitation centre in Bangladesh, so it may not reflect people with spinal cord injury in other settings. Twenty participants were interviewed, and only four were female, so home-making and women's experiences were less developed. The same participants were not interviewed twice and member checking was not possible. Interviews were conducted in Bangla and translated into English, so meanings may have been altered. All participants had received a vocational rehabilitation program, including vocational assessment, training, job advocacy, and financial support, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. It is a qualitative study, so it reports meanings and barriers, not whether an intervention works.

Funders named: Latrobe University Postgraduate Research Scholarship; International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics, Australian National Member Society; Swinburne University of Technology. The first author had previously worked at the study centre, CRP, and had prior experience working with people with spinal cord injury.

Do not read the themes as evidence that vocational rehabilitation, wheelchair competence, or workplace adjustments improve work participation. This was a qualitative interview study of 20 people, with no comparison group or outcome measure, so it describes meanings and barriers, not tested effects.