Ang Y, Cai WW, Li Q. Letter to the editor: Integrating psychological care into postoperative spinal cord injury rehabilitation: An imperative based on recent evidence. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(10): 120364 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.120364]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Qian Li, PhD, Department of Pain, Jiangning Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, No. 169 Hushan Road, Jiangning District, Nanjing 210001, Jiangsu Province, China. a162033973@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Clinical Neurology
Article-Type of This Article
letter
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
Share the Article
Ang Y, Cai WW, Li Q. Letter to the editor: Integrating psychological care into postoperative spinal cord injury rehabilitation: An imperative based on recent evidence. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(10): 120364 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.120364]
World J Psychiatry. Oct 19, 2026; 16(10): 120364 Published online Oct 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.120364
Letter to the editor: Integrating psychological care into postoperative spinal cord injury rehabilitation: An imperative based on recent evidence
Yang Ang, Wei-Wei Cai, Qian Li
Yang Ang, Department of Anesthesiology, Surgery, and Pain Management, Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University, Nanjing 210001, Jiangsu Province, China
Wei-Wei Cai, Qian Li, Department of Pain, Jiangning Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210001, Jiangsu Province, China
Co-first authors: Yang Ang and Wei-Wei Cai.
Author contributions: Ang Y performed the literature retrieval and sentence revision; Cai WW conducted the manuscript formatting; Ang Y and Cai WW contributed equally to this article, they are the co-first authors of this manuscript; Li Q was responsible for study design and manuscript writing; and all authors reviewed the manuscript and approved the submitted version.
AI contribution statement: AI tools (DeepSeek and DeepL) was solely employed to assist with formatting and to translate our original ideas into semantically accurate English expressions. The core research findings, response arguments, supporting evidence, and academic insights in the “Answering-Reviewers” document and manuscript were all independently authored by researchers.
Supported by Nanjing Medical Science and Technology Development Project, No. YKK23221; and Nanjing Postdoctoral Outstanding Research Project Funding (2024).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Corresponding author: Qian Li, PhD, Department of Pain, Jiangning Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, No. 169 Hushan Road, Jiangning District, Nanjing 210001, Jiangsu Province, China. a162033973@163.com
Received: February 26, 2026 Revised: April 11, 2026 Accepted: May 18, 2026 Published online: October 19, 2026 Processing time: 228 Days and 1.1 Hours
Abstract
A spinal cord injury (SCI), as a severe form of central nervous system trauma, results in permanent or temporary impairment of motor, sensory, and autonomic functions. SCIs pose a profound threat to patient psychological well-being. Although previous studies have investigated the epidemiologic characteristics, pathologic mechanisms, and surgical intervention strategies of patients with SCI, a systematic evaluation of postoperative psychological status - especially anxiety and depression - and its relationship with injury severity and sleep quality has received insufficient attention. The study entitled “Postoperative anxiety-depression in patients with SCI: Correlations with injury severity and sleep quality” conducted by Tian et al and published in the World Journal of Psychiatry, provides a systematic response to this clinical gap. Importantly, this study strongly argues that we must reconceptualize postoperative follow-up to include routine, mandatory psychological screening.
Core Tip: (1) Highlight the clinical significance of the study’s findings within the broader context of spinal cord injury rehabilitation; (2) Emphasize the importance of integrating psychological assessment into routine postoperative care; (3) Discuss the potential of sleep quality as a modifiable therapeutic target; (4) Propose stratified intervention strategies based on the identified risk factors; and (5) Offer perspectives on future research directions, including mechanistic studies and longitudinal designs.
