Dificuldades na comunicação entre pessoas com deficiência auditiva e profissionais de saúde: uma questão de saúde pública

PURPOSE: To describe the occurrence of reports from people with hearing and/or multiple disabilities (hearing and visual and/or mobility) regarding hearing and understanding health professionals. METHODS: Cross-sectional study through health survey, conducted with selected subjects from two population-based studies. Data collection took place at subjects' homes, through interviews conducted by trained interviewers in the area of Sao Paulo. Information regarding difficulties to hear and understand what health professionals said in the last health service used were collected, besides demographic information (age, gender and race), economic data (head of household income), type of health service sought, use of private health insurance, and need of help when accessing the health service. RESULTS: From the interviewees, 35% reported problems to hear and understand the health professionals in the last service visited; 30.6% (95%CI: 23.4-37.8) to understand the physicians; 18.1% (95%CI: 12.0-24.1) to understand the nurses; and 21.2% (95%CI: 14.8-27.6) to understand the other employees. There were no differences for the demographic variables, the need of help with bathing and dressing, eating, standing and/or walking, having or not private health insurance, and type of health service visited. CONCLUSION: From the total of individuals interviewed, 35% reported problems to hear and understand what was said by health professionals. Among these, 34.74% had hearing disability and 35.38% had multiple disabilities.