Students’ attitudes of the faculty of health sciences to persons with disabilities

Introduction. Attitude towards the disabled persons changed vitally over the centuries.

The aim of the study. To assessment of students’ attitudes toward disabled persons.

Material and methods. The study was conducted based on the original questionnaire, addressed a group of 228 students.

Results. Almost 12% of respondents have or had in their environment people with disabilities and 60.4% declared their willingness to help
them. The term „disability” reminded them of the rules of the lack of mobility of the total (21.5% of respondents). People’s attitude toward
people with disabilities is in the opinion of 26% is rather bad. In the opinion of respondent’s people with disabilities can get married (95%),
have children (81%), work (95%), drive a car (96%), to learn in the classroom integration (81%), and take care of them should generally family
(81%). Most (67.5%) students looked to be hard-of-hearing people, and the least (30.3%) persons and visible deformity, disfigurement of the
body. Respondents preferred separation model functioning person with a disability (32%). The greatest perceived difficulty was finding
people with disabilities jobs (21%). The group considered the biggest problems people with people with deeper speech disorders and
deaf people (21%). Respondents considered passive disabilities in working life and society (38% of responses), and all their public awarepaździerness
campaigns on the need or irritation (22%). However, 88% of respondents could not name any organization acting on behalf of people
with disabilities.

Conclusions. Students’ opinions on the attitude of society towards people with disabilities and their preparation to care for them were
divided. Students preferred model of disability separation operation and believed that they are passive in working life and society. The
respondents declared their readiness to provide assistance to disabled people, but it depended on the disability type. Most respondents
could not mention social campaigns and organizations for disabled people and famous people with disabilities, which may serve as
a model for other people.
Nursing Topics 2012; 20 (4): 487–496