The broad, long-term objectives of the present proposal is to translate findings into targeted interventions in terms of sexuality education and therapy that will help people with SCI take pleasure in their sexuality, re-establish, improve, and manage reproductive function and outcomes, and improve their overall sexual health and quality of life.
The specific aims of this study are to identify and describe beliefs, attitudes, and personal cognitive constructs that may impede or facilitate sexual function, sexual pleasure, and orgasm in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). The proposed dialectical study will use a pluralistic approach incorporating qualitative methods of phenomenology, grounded theory, and phenomenography that utilize in-depth, open-ended interviews and quantitative methods utilizing standardized measurement tools. The qualitative methods stem from a constructivistic paradigm guided by phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, and personal construct theory while the quantitative methods stem from a postpositivistic paradigm.
