Autonomy and Housing Accessibility Among Powered Mobility Device Users.

OBJECTIVE To describe environmental barriers, accessibility problems, and powered mobility device (PMD) users' autonomy indoors and outdoors; to determine the home environmental barriers that generated the most housing accessibility problems indoors, at entrances, and in the close exterior surroundings; and to examine personal factors and environmental components and their association with indoor and outdoor autonomy. METHOD This cross-sectional study was based on data collected from a sample of 48 PMD users with a spinal cord injury (SCI) using the Impact of Participation and Autonomy and the Housing Enabler instruments. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used. RESULTS More years living with SCI predicted less restriction in autonomy indoors, whereas more functional limitations and accessibility problems related to entrance doors predicted more restriction in autonomy outdoors. CONCLUSION To enable optimized PMD use, practitioners must pay attention to the relationship between client autonomy and housing accessibility problems.

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