Factors related to social participation of persons with disabilities at CRP

Abstract

Introduction: Approximately 15% of total populations in world are experiencing some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant challenges in working and functioning. Disability is chronic impairment prompting social and financial drawbacks, deprived of rights with constrained chances of having equal access in community. Society often excludes the people with impairment but they are unaware about the value of excluding them. This leads to decrease productivity in community. Objective: To measure the social participation of persons with disabilities and its relationship with sociodemographic, personal and environmental factors. To study differences between staff, students and patients of CRP in this respect. Methods: A comparative cross-sectional study design was used and 185 data were collected from the Centre of Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed. Socio-demographic data, disease/disability related data, environmental data and other data related to personal factors were collected. Primarily CHIEF-S, Rosenberg self-esteem scale, participation scale and other self-structured questionnaire were used for data collection. The data was collected using face to face interview from the patients. Results: The mean age of the patient was 29.39±8.613. when interpreting the score for the scales, patients were found to be most affected while staff were discovered as the less affected by their disability. In final model, having multiple diagnosis (p=0.003), high magnitude of environmental barrier (p=0.000), poor attitude or support (p=0.000), being diagnosed as Rheumatoid arthritis (0.009) and work/school subscale (p=0.000) had significant relationship with social participation. The first three factors were responsible for hindering the social participation while the last two were facilitating the participation. Conclusion: Except 25.4% almost all the participants experience some degree of restrictions on social participation. Despite of the severe disability status, person can still enjoy a good participation and self-esteem if attitude and build environment are made disability-friendly. Keywords: Person with disability, environmental barrier, self-esteem, social participation.