Knowledge, Perception And Attitude Of Adults Towards People With Disabilities

The literature on people with disability demonstrates poor knowledge of people with disability among the general population and also indicates that people often have stigmatizing attitudes towards people with disability.   

A descriptive cross-sectional study and quantitative approaches were employed in data collection and 67 respondents were involved both males and females who were selected using simple random sampling method.   

The results indicated that generally knowledge on people with disability was poor although majority of the respondents (67%) knew the meaning of people with disability. Attitudes towards people with disability were very poor as 55.2% agreed that they cannot associate with people with disability and 49.2% expressed fear for people with disability. Results about the care for people with disability indicated that 54% cannot take people with disability to hospital but 48.4% of these would instead take people with disability to a traditional healer.  

The recommendation is that basic Physical Disability awareness programs should be implemented for general public especially newly school going children and youth to improve the knowledge and understanding and attitudes to reduce fear and negative perceptions and attitudes in order to enhance positive patient experiences and improve the care for people with disability.