A traumatic injury to spinal cord presents a sudden overwhelming threat to the individual’s psychological safety which may create many adjustment problems. The early adjustment to traumatic injury is both adaptive and protective to the patient. He becomes maladaptive only when it begins to interfere with the realistic efforts and plans. It results in a sudden and profound disruption to an individual’s life. Person’s life and various factors contribute towards the evolution of adjustment problems. The present study was conducted to assess the adjustment problems in spinal cord injured patients. It was hypothesized that significant difference would be found between adjustment of SCI patients and non-SCI controls. Further it was hypothesized that acute patients would have more adjustment problems than chronic patients whereas, no such difference would be found in their respective control groups. For testing the hypothesis, an ex-post-facto research with multigroup design was adopted. A total sample of 80 subjects (SCl=40; Non-SCl=40). The participants of patient group were further divided into two groups of 20 each on the basis of duration of injury i.e. acute and chronic patient group. An equal number of participants, the key attendants of the SCI patients were taken as control group. The sample was selected from District Rehabilitation Centre at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak on availability basis. Dysfunction Analysis Questionnaire (Parsad et al, 1985) which consists of five subscales pertaining to adjustment in five areas, i.e. personal, social emotional, vocational and cognitive was individually administered to all the participants. Data were analyzed by using t-test and Duncan’s Range Test. Findings revealed that the patient group had more adjustment problems than the control group. Further, the deterioration in adjustment was more in social and vocational areas than other areas of adjustment. The relevance of including key attendants as control group is discussed in the findings along with the implications of the study
