A Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) often drastically disrupts the lives of affected patients and their relatives and caregivers. This observational study will provide new knowledge on how patients and their family caregivers cope in the first years after injury in terms of work inclusion, participation, care giver burden and quality of life. This project will utilize Norwegian spinal cord injury quality register data and link clinical individual data from the quality register to national administrative data on employment and social insurance benefits.

All individuals in the Norwegian Spinal Cord Injury Registry (NorSCIR) in the period 2011-2017, meaning that they have already given their consent, will be asked to participate. They will be sent a letter with information about the study including a questionnaire.

In the letter they will also be asked, if they agree, to forward an invitation letter to their closest caregiver addressed to "the main family caregiver".

Main family caregiver will be defined as persons who are providing unpaid assistance and support to the person with a SCI. The letter for the caregiver with information about the study, includes a questionnaire. All patients in the NorSCIR and their main caregivers (after consent) will be linked to national administrative register to provide data on social insurance benefits, education and work.

Control groups from the general population will be selected and identified in the national registries (for both the patient cohort and caregiver cohort). These control groups will be used to compare the level of work/benefit over time for patients and caregivers with that of the general population. Also, within-person approaches will be used to assess the impact of the injury, comparing each participant's status in the period after injury with their own status at a time period before injury.

20.04.2022 A relatively low proportion of family caregivers responded to the questionnaire (N = 73). Only 61 gave their consent to link their data to data from Statistics Norway and the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration. We had, therefore, to reconsider this part of the project. We have now concluded that the caregiver population is too small to link their information to the national administrative registers and to make a comparison with a control group from the general population. A control group for caregivers was therefore not needed anymore.

Cohort 1:

Inclusion criteria:

• registered in the Norwegian spinal cord injury quality registry
• giving informed consent, i.e. accept that the information in the registry (included linked information in national registers)

Exclusion criteria:

• younger than 16 years

Cohort 2:

Inclusion criteria:

• providing unpaid assistance and support to the person with a spinal cord injury
• chosen by the patient.

Exclusion criteria:

• younger than 16 years

Cohort 3 :

Inclusion:

• Control groups from the general population, for patients
• identified in the national registries

Exclusion criteria:

• younger than 16 years

Cohort 1:

All individuals in NorSCIR in the period 2011-2017, meaning that they have already given their consent, will be asked to participate.

Cohort 2:

Main family caregiver will be defined as persons who are providing unpaid assistance and support to the person with a spinal cord injury.

Cohort 3 :

A control group from the general population will be selected and identified in the national registries ( the patient cohort).