This investigation was concerned with the relationship between loneliness and disability in individuals with back and spinal cord injury. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to answer the following questions: (1) Do disabled individuals report a greater degree of loneliness than an able-bodied control group? (2) Does loneliness relate to the level of expressed need for inclusion and affection? (3) Does locus of control relate to the degree of loneliness reported by individuals with disability? (4) Does the employment status or living arrangement of disabled individuals relate to the degree of reported loneliness? (5) Does the short form of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale provide a reliable estimate of the full-scale form in the measurement of loneliness in disabled individuals? The population for this study consisted of thirty spinal-injured paraplegics, thirty back-injured patients, and fifty able-bodied control subjects. The criterion instruments employed in this study were the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior, and the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. Survey packets were mailed to the spinal-injury and back-injury subjects. Able-bodied controls were administered the same packet in a group-classroom setting. The data was analyzed by Pearson Product-Moment correlation, point bi-serial correlation, One Way Analysis of Variance, and Student t-test. The significance level for this investigation was set at .05. Based on the results of the statistical analyses, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) Paraplegics did not significantly differ from back-injured patients, or an able-bodied control group, on the measure of Loneliness. (2) A significant correlation (negative) was found between loneliness and the expressed need for inclusion and affection in the spinal-injured group. (3) A significant relationships between loneliness and employment status or living arrangement was not found. (4) Spinal-injured paraplegics rated as externals on the locus of control measure were significantly higher than those subjects rated as having an internal locus of control on the measure of loneliness. (5) The short-form of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale was significantly, (positively), correlated with the full-form in all subject groups.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/185937 |
| Date | January 1983 |
| Creators | BOHANSKE, ROBERT THOMAS. |
| Contributors | Johnson, Bob, Bence, Marlene, Organist, James, Leung, Paul, Wrenn, Robert, Hohmann, George |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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