Implementation of Person-Centered Care in Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury Across Health Care Settings: A Scoping Review

Increasingly, person-centred care (PCC) has been recognized as an evidence-based component and a foundational best practice of quality care in occupational therapy and rehabilitation settings. Within spinal cord injury (SCI) care, PCC has been advocated as a treatment priority within evidence-based best-practice recommendations, particularly in cases involving comorbid cognitive impairment (Arora et al., 2025). Similarly, in traumatic brain injury (TBI) care, PCC has been associated with positive treatment outcomes, including higher satisfaction with care processes, greater functional independence, increased engagement in physical therapy, and psychosocial outcomes such as addressing the impact of trauma and promoting a sense of self-efficacy and self-worth post-injury. However, despite this growing body of evidence supporting the value of PCC, systematic examination of its implementation in real-world practice remains limited. Although PCC implementation has been examined within general rehabilitation settings and populations, to our knowledge no review has specifically focused on how PCC is implemented within spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) care. Given that SCI and TBI care occur along a continuum—from acute to chronic stages and across diverse care settings—it is critical to understand how PCC is implemented and experienced beyond inpatient rehabilitation, including community-based, home-based, outpatient, and other post-traumatic care contexts. Additionally, evidence remains limited on the outcomes of person-centred care (PCC) from both provider and client experiences and perspectives in the context of SCI and/or TBI care. For instance, Cruz et al. (2016) identified a notable gap in research examining the experiences of individuals with TBI and highlighted the need for future studies to investigate both client and provider perspectives in order to determine the relevance of PCC in real-world practice. Similarly, within SCI care, Ahmed et al. (2019) noted a scarcity of literature that systematically assesses the quality of PCC delivery and emphasized that existing PCC frameworks remain limited in their attention to practical application in real-world settings. Examining implementation processes (i.e., barriers and facilitators, and implementation strategies) can support more systematic, evidence-informed, and contextually tailored approaches, ultimately informing more effective implementation efforts that can leverage the potential impact of PCC in supporting individuals with SCI and TBI across care trajectories and diverse settings. Along these lines, systematic investigation of a range of outcomes—including implementation outcomes (e.g., feasibility and appropriateness), as well as mapping the range of client and provider experiences, perspectives, and outcomes that have been evaluated—can strengthen the rationale for applying PCC in ways that are specific to these populations and help identify remaining gaps in its real-world application and/or evaluation. As such, this scoping review aims to explore how person-centred care (PCC) approaches are applied in the care of people with spinal cord injury (SCI) and/or traumatic brain injury (TBI) across the care continuum, ranging from acute care and rehabilitation to community reintegration, within diverse care settings globally (e.g., trauma centres, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation centres, and community-based services). Peer-reviewed literature will be identified through five major health databases: MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and CINAHL. The specific objectives of this review are to: - Synthesize existing literature on the implementation and application of PCC approaches for individuals with SCI and TBI; - Identify key components, features, models, and frameworks of PCC used in these populations; - Identify principles or attributes of PCC described or reflected in SCI and/or TBI care; - Describe client and provider experiences, perceptions, and outcomes related to the delivery and receipt of PCC in SCI and TBI contexts; - Examine implementation processes and outcomes of PCC across the SCI and TBI care continuum and settings.