Health Information Needs of Blind people in Iran

Background and purpose: In the 21 st century information society information has an important role in supporting and increasing health and social care. Public libraries and information centers enhance the level of knowledge by providing valuable information for people. However, enough information is not always available according to the needs of blind people. This study was conducted to investigate the health information needs of blind people in Iran. Materials and methods: This descriptive-analytic study was carried out among 384 blind people including 252 (65.6%) male and 132 (34.4%) female who were selected by multi-clustering method from ten provinces of Iran. The data was collected using a researcher made questionnaire that included demographic features, health information, and information sources, and then analyzed by statistical tests. Results: There was no significant difference between health information needs of blind people and their gender, age, marital status, level of education, job, treatment process, history of blindness in the family, time of blindness, province of residency, and living alone or with family. However, significant differences were found between health information needs of blind people and treatment, type of blindness and rural-urban residency. Conclusion: The results of this study could help the authorities in selecting, collecting and organizing the health information and disseminate them to the public libraries and information centers so that they could provide blind people with their required health information.