Knowledge level of spinal cord injuries about autonomic dysreflexia

Autonomic dysreflexia is a sympathetic imbalance syndrome that early diagnosis of its signs and symptoms and its treatment can prevent its dangerous complications. This study was designed for evaluation of veterans’ knowledge about autonomic dysreflexia and assessing the effect of training on their knowledge. In this quasi experimental study, 60 male veterans with spinal cord injury who had referred to one of the hospitals of Veterans Foundation for lab tests or resided in the rest homes of Tehran were selected by available purposive sampling. Data were collected by a researcher- made questionnaire containing the demographics and questions on knowledge about autonomic dysreflexia and its common signs. Data were analyzed by SPSS 11 software using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and paired T-test. The mean age of samples was 46.42 ± 5.29 and the mean duration of their spinal damage was 25.5 ± 6.37 years. 24(40%) had traumatic injury above the T6 level and the most frequent signs of the disease were respectively: hypertension, pulsing headache, spasm increase and head & neck diaphoresis. The mean knowledge score of samples was 1.136 ± 0.38 out of 6 before intervention that increased to 5.48(±0.596) after educational promoting (p<0.001). Promoting and closed supervising of this group of veterans is recommended considering their aging and increasing the risk of atherosclerosis and exacerbation of autonomic dysreflexia complications.