Experiences of Intimacy and Relationship Maintenance in Acute Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

ii Sustaining a spinal cord injury (SCI) has a profound impact upon the individual with the injury and their family members, particularly their partner. Little is known about the couple’s experience of injury impact and how this is experienced during acute, hospital-based, rehabilitation. This qualitative study aimed to explore the couple’s experience of intimacy and maintenance of relationships following a SCI within the newly implemented Transitionz Rehabilitation (TR) Programme at Burwood Spinal Unit (BSU). Five couples participated in semi-structured, in-depth, dyadic (joint) interviews. Couples were recruited from the TR programme and interviewed before discharge home. In each couple the man was the person with a SCI. Drawing on the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) I depict the couples ’ experiences in three themes, and one ‘contextual ’ theme that describes the couple relationship in the dyadic interview