Abstract: Objective To understand the causes of injury and levels of disability of patients with traumatic spinal cord injury and explore the related factors with the levels of disability. Methods Literature review and experts panel advice were used to collect the related factors. The questionnaire "Survey on Related Factors of Disability Levels of Patients with Ttraumatic Spinal Cord Injury" was designed for the data collection, including the causes of injury, being conscious or not, protection of the injured areas, tools for transportation, the time getting first aid, levels of emergency hospitals and the time of first spinal surgery. From October 2010 to March 2011, 260 inpatients with traumatic spinal cord injury were surveyed by the well-trained researchers. Results 107 patients(41.2%) were caused by traffic accidents, 69 (26.5%) were caused by falls, 60 (23.1%) by crash, 6 (2.3%)by sports injury, and 18 (6.9%) by other reasons. The results of the extent and the levels were that complete paraplegia take up 41.15%, complete tetraplegia take up 25.38%, incomplete tetraplegia take up 18.08%, incomplete paraplegia take up 15.39%. There were significant differences in the causes of injury between the different extent and levels of injury (P<0.05). There were significant differences in levels of injury between the different extent of injury (P<0.05). Significant differences were existed in the levels of injury among being conscious or not, protection of injured areas during transportation and the secondary transportation (P<0.05). Whereas, no significant difference was observed among protection in the injury site, tools for transportation, the time getting first aid, the levels of emergency hospitals and the first time of spinal surgery between the different extent of injury(P>0.05). Conclusion Not only the causes of injury, but also the protection of injured areas, high frequency of secondary transportation are responsible for the extent of injury and levels of injury in individuals with traumatic spinal cord injury in China.

Key words: traumatic spinal cord injury, causes, levels of disability, factors