Resources search

Purpose: The hospitality industry is labour intensive. Currently, in India, hotels have a high employee attrition rate. This study aimed to explore the attitudes of hotel managers towards recruiting persons with disabilities as employees, a move which could benefit all concerned.

Method: A structured survey instrument was sent to 31 employers in star category hotels.

Results: Employers’ attitudes have a significant influence on the recruitment of persons with disabilities. While the intention to hire persons with disabilities is positively associated with quality of work, loyalty, and dependability, it can also be negatively associated with lack of skill, work experience, poor time management and absenteeism.

Conclusion: It is concluded that employers hire person with disabilities to work in hotels as they are more reliable and loyal towards the organisation. This attitude from the side of employees with disabilities will also help to overcome the problem of high employee attrition that has a deleterious effect on profitability in the service industry.

Limitation: The data is collected from hotels in a single city, which may limit the generalisation of the findings.

Purpose: Although leprosy is completely curable with multidrug therapy, it is unfortunate that the stigma attached to leprosy persists even today. Fear of social exclusion prevents disclosure of the disease to the family and community. This study aimed to evaluate the extent of disclosure of disease among women affected by leprosy in a tertiary referral hospital in Chhattisgarh State, India.

Method: A qualitative study was conducted with 57 women affected by leprosy who reported at a tertiary referral hospital in Champa, Chhattisgarh State. The respondents were 18 years of age or older, and had completed multidrug therapy for leprosy. They were asked whether the disclosure of disease had affected their interactions with family, neighbours and community members.

Results: Of the 57 women, 48 (84%) had disclosed their disease to their family, 17 (30%) to their neighbours and 13 (23%) to the community members. Thirty women (53%) reported that they experienced problems after revealing the ailment to their family, friends and neighbours. The qualitative analysis found that negative behaviour towards people affected by leprosy still persists in the community. Consequently, women affected by leprosy try to hide their disease due to fear of negative community reactions.

Conclusion: This study emphasises the need to spread awareness about the disease and its transmission, by educating the people affected by leprosy, their families and the community. This should be a continuous process in order to reduce or remove the stigma and discrimination against women affected by leprosy, in particular.

Purpose: This study investigated the attitudes of secondary school teachers towards students with blindness or partial sight in selected states in Nigeria.

Method: The authors utilised the modified version of a previous instrument to collect data from 306 secondary school teachers in Nigeria. Six basic questions were established to address: respondents’ attitudes towards inclusion; training acquired related to teaching; knowledge pertaining to policy and legislation; confidence levels to teach students with disabilities.; impact of geographical location; and differences in attitudes by the variables of subject(s) taught, school level taught, and years of teaching experience.

Results: Attitudes of participants were mixed but were generally positive. The level of training was low, with teachers showing limited knowledge of policy and legislation. A little over a quarter (27%) of them lacked confidence in teaching. There were differences in attitudes related to the geographical location of respondents. Those who taught at the senior secondary school level tended to have higher attitude scores on average than their counterparts at the junior secondary school level.

Conclusion and Limitations: This study used self-report measures, although observations and interviews could be additional ways to evaluate the attitudes of participants throughout the country. Moreover, in-service programmes may need to be implemented to increase teachers’ knowledge base and expand their experiences in line with established policies and legislation.

Purpose: People who use wheelchairs face a range of physical, social, and economic barriers to regular participation in their communities. These barriers may be more acute in countries such as Bangladesh which are affected by poverty and often lack the physical infrastructure or resources necessary to create inclusive or accessible environments. This research aimed to identify: (a) the barriers and facilitators to accessibility faced by wheelchair users in Bangladesh; (b) how these barriers affect the inclusion of wheelchair users in Bangladeshi society; and (c) what could be done to improve accessibility and inclusion for wheelchair users in Bangladesh.

Methods:  This participatory action research (PAR) project used Photovoice and semi-structured interviews to identify barriers and facilitators to accessibility for people who use wheelchairs in Bangladesh.

Results: Participants mentioned a number of barriers in public spaces, such as roads, missing or inadequate ramps, inaccessible restrooms, and negative attitudes. There were also participants who had made their home environments more accessible with accommodations such as ramps, arrangement of space, and low countertops/work spaces. Women wheelchair users seemed to face greater barriers to access, as compared to men, in a range of community spaces and activities. Participants’ recommendations for improvement targeted government stakeholders and included greater focus on road infrastructure, particularly during flooding in the rainy season, and modifications to the public transportation system.

Conclusion: A key goal of the study was to identify barriers and facilitators, and use the information gathered to promote social change on the ground. Future research and action should encourage more people to get involved in removing barriers for people with disabilities, in Bangladesh as well as globally

Purpose: Disability is a global health and a global development concern. To address both issues, a community-based rehabilitation (CBR) approach is increasingly recommended to meet a spectrum of needs, especially for people with disabilities. It is first necessary to understand the perceptions of local, frontline providers, in order to design effective measures for implementing CBR programmes. This paper aimed to understand the conceptions of Primary Healthcare Providers (PHPs) - serving a sub-urban, socially-vulnerable territory in Brazil - about: 1) disability, 2) rehabilitation, and 3) the possible local implementation of a CBR strategy, including any anticipated barriers.

Method: Cross-sectional, exploratory qualitative research was based on focus groups conducted between 2013 and 2016. It involved a total of 78 PHPs serving the western region of the Ribeirão Preto municipality in São Paulo, Brazil. Data analysis was based on Habermas’ critical hermeneutics approach.

Results: PHPs understood disability mostly within the biomedical paradigm. Similarly, the predominant conception of rehabilitation was focussed on enabling individuals’ capacity, more than their environment. For local CBR implementation, the barriers that were anticipated were: 1) difficulties in managing and running action across sectors, and 2) the broader socio-political environment that hardly empowers civil society and is affected by power differentials.

Conclusion and Implications: While local PHPs identified important CBR implementation barriers which are contextual in nature, the predominant conceptions of disability and rehabilitation (i.e., biomedical, impairments-based) also act as a barrier. Contextual and cognitive barriers must both be addressed when envisioning a local CBR implementation

Purpose: Healthcare, one of mankind’s basic needs, is generally accessible to persons without disability, but people with disabilities are marginalized and stigmatized in developing countries and as such are unable to utilise the health services they require.  The health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) talk about good health and well-being, and about reducing inequality in societies. In South Africa and Ghana, constitutional provisions and policies have been made for inclusion and for reducing inequality among persons with disabilities, but implementation is still in its infancy. The aim of this study is to determine the level of utilisation and satisfaction with health services among persons with disabilities, and to recommend strategies to improve the current situation in the country.

Method: A non-interventional, descriptive cross-sectional study was employed, with a quantitative data collection method. A structured questionnaire comprising of both open- and closed-ended questions was used for the data collection. A total of 363 respondents were involved in the study – 360 were persons with disabilities, and 3 were key informants.

Results: While A total of 66.9% of persons with disabilities reported being warmly received by health professionals, 23.1% reported encountering a cold attitude, and 5.6% reported being scorned at health facilities. Only 20.5% of persons with disabilities reported frequent visits to health facilities, 42.8% did not visit health facilities frequently, and 36.4% rarely visited a health facility. Moreover 76.4% reported that they made hospital visits for all their ailments.

Conclusion: Although health facilities were utilised by few persons with disabilities, the majority of respondents reported that they were well-received there and as such would visit health facilities for all their medical needs.

Implications: Persons with disabilities should be included in all areas of society by spreading awareness about their abilities. Partnerships between persons with disabilities and the government and other non-governmental  organization’s should be established, to mainstream health services to meet their general and specific needs. It is increasingly important that persons with disabilities play an active role in managing their healthcare needs.

Purpose: There are social and environmental barriers faced by persons with disabilities which have been reported in literature. In discussing these barriers, attention is yet to be given to the support from families to members with disabilities. This study aimed to examine family support and its impact on the lives of persons with disabilities in Ghana.

Methods: The study participants were 48 persons with disabilities - physical, hearing and visual disabilities - who were members of Disabled Peoples’ Organisations. They were conveniently drawn from 4 districts in the Northern region of Ghana.

Results: The study found that the families of the participants did not give them adequate support to access services that would improve their lives. For instance, limited access to education resulted in inability of participants to secure  jobs.

Conclusion: Without the primary support of the family, persons with disabilities might be unable to break down social barriers due to their inability to access education and other developmentally useful services. The implication of the study for policy-making has been discussed extensively.

Purpose: Beliefs about communication disability vary according to the cultural context, and influence people’s attitudes and help-seeking behaviour. Little is known about Fijians with communication disability or the communities in which they live, and specialist services for people with communication disability are yet to be established in Fiji. An understanding of Fijian beliefs about the causes of communication disability and attitudes towards people with communication disability may inform future service development.

Method: An interpretivist qualitative research paradigm and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework informed this project’s design. Scenarios of adults and children with communication disability were presented to 144 participants, randomly sampled across multiple public spaces in two Fiji cities. Thematic analysis of responses to 15 survey questions revealed participant beliefs about the causes and attitudes towards people with communication disability.

Results: Three clusters describing perceived causes emerged from the analysis - internal, external, and supernatural. Major clusters across child and adult scenarios were similar; however, response categories within the scenarios differed. Community attitudes to people with communication disability were predominantly negative. These community attitudes influenced individual participants’ beliefs about educational and employment opportunities for Fijians with communication disability.

Conclusion: Determination and acknowledgement of individuals’ belief systems informs development of culturally appropriate intervention programmes and health promotion activities.

Implications: Speech-language pathologists and other professionals working with Fijian communities should acknowledge community belief systems and develop culturally-specific health promotion activities, assessments, and interventions.

Purpose: Inclusive education and post-school life are crossover issues that cut across societal lines and therefore need a multisectoral approach. This study examines the educational opportunities of children with disability and their post-school life in rural Sri Lanka.

Methods: The research was implemented with multiple sectors in a rural area of the North Central Province, from January - November 2014. Mixed methods were applied as follows: surveys with children with disability aged 2 to 18 years (n=103); case studies of children with disability who dropped out of or did not attend school (n=3); semi-structured interviews with ex-students with disability who had attended special needs classes (n=13); and, informal interviews with a CBR core group officer. Data was mainly analysed with qualitative procedures.

Results: The study consists of 3 parts. The first part revealed that in terms of the current educational opportunities among children with disability aged 2 to 18 years, approximately 31.1% utilised educational resources whereas 38.8% were at home with no special social activities. The case studies in the second part revealed the reasons for limited educational opportunities in the area and the barriers to educational access, which included family members’ attitudes and socio-economic aspects such as poverty. The third part, consisting of semi-structured interviews with ex-students with disability who received education but did not participate in the CBR activities, revealed 3 types of post-school lifestyle: ‘time mostly spent at home’, ‘household chores’ and ‘temporary agricultural work’. The interviews also indicated other barriers to post-school participation, such as a lack of network and information, negative experiences during the schooling period, and families’ priorities. 

Conclusions: Inadequate educational opportunities among children with disability and barriers to post-school social participation in rural Sri Lanka are revealed. This study argues the importance of the multisectoral approach to find unidentified children as well as to conduct comprehensive programmes.