ATTITUDE OF THE STUDENTS TOWARDS PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY; A CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION: The prevalence of disability is considerably higher in low income countries in contrast to higher income countries. According to A world report, about 80% of the disabled people live in low income countries. OBJECTIVE: To determine the attitude of physical therapy students towards disability. METHODOLOGY: This study was cross sectional survey which was carried out for the period of 6 months from (March 2018 to September 2018) This study was conducted among different departments of Northwest Institute of Health Sciences Peshawar. The total Sample size was 262 students calculated by using WHO sample size calculator. Sampling technique was convenient probability sampling. RESULTS: In this research total 262 students participated in which overall population of the students 115(43.9%) had positive attitude while rest of them 147(56.1%) had negative attitude towards the disability. Mostly paramedic’s students showed positive attitude 70.6% and Physical therapy students showed second most positive response 56.6% and then pathology student’s shows 50.0% positive response and then Radiology student’s shows 44.1% response. The most negative attitude was shown by students of Nursing 93.9% then Anesthesia students showed second most negative attitude 83.9% then Radiology students showed 55.9% negative response and then pathology students showed 50.0% negative response respectively. CONCLUSION: The conclusion of our study was that mostly half of the students showed negative attitude towards disable people and female students showed more negative attitude when compared to male students. So the competent authorities should plan and implement certain strategies to cope with the negative attitude of the students towards the disable persons. KEY WORDS: Attitude, Disability, Interaction with disabled person scale (IDP)