Contrary to our expectations, the motivational model
could not be established for the coping behavior of task
persistence. It appears that the measures of task persistence
used here, while reasonably well validated in other
groups, did a poorer job of measuring task persistence in
the present sample. Internal consistency for our measure
of motivation to change task persistence behavior was
marginal, and the outcome of actual task persistence
demonstrated a dramatic negative skew; a large majority
of the participants in this study reported that they
were using this adaptive coping strategy. It may be that
response bias played a role for these participants, who
thought that the answer “I have been persisting with
tasks despite pain for at least 12 months” was simply the
most appropriate response. Alternately, it could be that
the experience of SCI forces an individual to adopt a
stance of task persistence, and these data reflect actual
rates of this coping behavior. In any case, poor measurement
and statistical considerations interfered with our
ability to test our hypotheses related to task persistence
in this sample.