Indigenous injury outcomes: Life satisfaction among injured Māori in New Zealand three months after injury

  • Author(s) / Creator(s)
  • Background: Māori, the indigenous population of New Zealand, experience numerous and consistent health disparities when compared to non-Māori. Injury is no exception, yet there is a paucity of published literature that examines outcomes following a wide variety of injury types and severities for this population. This paper aims to identify pre-injury and injury-related predictors of life satisfaction three months after injury for a group of injured Māori. Methods: The Māori sample (n = 566) were all participants in the Prospective Outcomes of Injury Study (POIS). POIS is a longitudinal study of 2856 injured New Zealanders aged 18–64 years who were on an injury entitlement claims’ register with New Zealand’s no-fault compensation insurer. The well-known Te Whare Tapa Whā model of overall health and well-being was used to help inform the selection of post-injury life satisfaction predictor variables. Multivariable analyses were used to examine the relationships between potential predictors and life satisfaction. Results: Of the 566 Māori participants, post-injury life satisfaction data was available for 563 (99%) participants. Of these, 71% reported satisfaction with life three months after injury (compared to 93% pre-injury). Those with a higher injury severity score, not satisfied with pre-injury social relationships or poor self-efficacy pre-injury were less likely to be satisfied with life three months after injury. Conclusions: The large majority of Māori participants reported being satisfied with life three months after injury; however, nearly a third did not. This suggests that further research investigating outcomes after injury for Māori, and predictors of these, is necessary. Results show that healthcare providers could perhaps put greater effort into working alongside injured Māori who have more severe injuries, report poor self-efficacy and were not satisfied with their pre-injury social relationships to ensure increased likelihood of satisfaction with life soon after injury.

  • Date created
    2013
  • Subjects / Keywords
  • Type of Item
    Article (Published)
  • DOI
    https://doi.org/10.7939/R3X05XG6G
  • License
    © 2013 Emma Wyeth, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Canada License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ca/), which permits you to copy, distribute, display, perform, make derivatives of, and make commercial use of the work, provided the original author and source are credited.
  • Language
  • Citation for previous publication
    • Wyeth, E., Derrett, S., Hokowhitu, B. & Samaranayaka, A. 2013. Indigenous injury outcomes: Life satisfaction among injured Māori in New Zealand three months after injury. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 11, 120-135.