Association between individual wheelchair skills and fitness in community-dwelling manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries

Purpose Wheelchair skills are a key component to promotion of community participation among persons with spinal cord injury (SCI). The objective of this secondary analysis was to examine the association between individual wheelchair skills from the Wheelchair Skills Test Questionnaire (WST-Q) and fitness among community-dwelling adults with SCI. Materials and methods Twenty-six adults were recruited to complete the WST-Q and a standard graded aerobic wheelchair exercise test on a motorized treadmill for assessing peak power output (POpeak). Results Spearman Rho rank-order correlation (rho) analyses indicated statistically significant correlations between POpeak and six basic (rho = 0.41-0.57), eight intermediate (rho = 0.44-0.59), and nine advanced (rho = 0.42-0.80) WST-Q skill scores. After controlling for sex and injury level (Partial Spearman Rho rank order) significant correlations persisted for four advanced skills (i.e., descends high curb, turns in place in wheelie position, descends steep incline in wheelie position, descends high curb in wheelie position; rho = 0.46-0.59) and one additional skill (i.e., ascends high curb rho = 0.51). Conclusions More advanced wheelchair skills are significantly associated with fitness in persons with SCI. The directionality of the skills-fitness relationship, specifically whether wheelchair skills facilitate greater fitness or fitness is a prerequisite for certain wheelchair skills needs to be determined in future, larger studies. However, results from this study provide a comprehensive list of wheelchair skills that are associated with fitness that can be directly applied to guide further research and practice promoting community participation among persons with SCI.