Attitudes towards people with disability among nursing students of Birgunj

Abstract

According to Nepal's official census data (2011), the disability rate is 1.94% of total population. Individuals with disabilities continue to be one of the most socially excluded groups in society, continually pushing for equal rights and social inclusion. There is absence of any published research about nursing students' attitudes toward disabled people. The objective of the study is to find out the attitudes towards disabled person among nursing students of selected private colleges of Birgunj. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted to conduct study among 149 nursing students and the study sample was selected by using Proportionate stratified random sampling technique. Data was collected by using self-administered standardized Attitude Towards Disabled Person (ATDP) Scale. The obtained data was entered in Software Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26 and analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings depicted that 55.7% of the respondents were between the age group of 19-22 years old with mean age 19.147 and SD±1.69. Based on religion, 82.6% of respondents belongs to Hindu religion. The highest proportion (33.6%) of respondents were from the 1st and 3rd years. The majority (65.8%) of respondents had been in contact with a disabled person. Among those, 37.6% have been in contact with disable person as their patients. The mean and standard deviation of attitudes towards people with disabilities among nursing students were 56.01 and 14.076, respectively. The majority of the nursing students, 61.1% had a negative attitude towards disabled people, and 38.9% nursing students had a positive attitude towards disabled person. According to the findings, more than half of the students had negative attitude towards disabled person. The findings may be valuable to the responsible authority in incorporating disability-related content into the curriculum.