Abstract
Objective: To assess the attitudes of health professionals towards Deafness and its association with sociodemographic and Deaf contact experience. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in Concepcion, Chile. The sample size was estimated in 171 health professionals. The following variables were considered: sociodemographics, Deaf contact experience, and attitudes to deafness scale (ADS scale). To evaluate the association between the variables, t-test and Spearman correlation test were used (p<0.05). Results: People who had taken a LSCh course had significant more positive attitudes towards item 1 “Deaf people should learn to lipread”, with a 2 points difference and in persons who do not know a Deaf person, with 1-point difference. Also, persons who have received some kind of formation in Deafness have a better attitude in item 3 “I would like to have more Deaf friends” with 1-point difference. An inverse correlation was observed within age (rho = -0.237; p=0.0014), years of academic service (rho = -0.323; p<0.0001) or PHC service (rho = -0.1085; p=0,364). Conclusion: The attitude of health professionals towards Deafness was neutral. This attitude is not modulated by sex, type of profession, type of relationship with Deaf people, type of training in hearing disability, Chilean Sign Language Courses or degree of frequency of healthcare delivery to Deaf patients. However, it is modulated by age and years of service.
Highlights
Most people who are born deaf or have a hearing loss at an early age identify themselves as part of a linguistic minority: The Deaf Community
The attitude of health professionals towards Deafness was neutral. This attitude is not modulated by sex, type of profession, type of relationship with Deaf people, type of training in hearing disability, Chilean Sign Language Courses or degree of frequency of healthcare delivery to Deaf patients
It is modulated by age and years of service
Summary
Most people who are born deaf or have a hearing loss at an early age identify themselves as part of a linguistic minority: The Deaf Community. This community has its own language, customs, values, and, its own culture: Deaf Culture, and they call themselves "Deaf" with a capital "D". A large number of them are illiterate due to educational barriers [1,9] This communication gap represents a great barrier in healthcare centers, diminishing the quality of healthcare delivered to this population [10,11,12]. One reason for this situation is that health professionals have limited competencies to meet the specific needs of this population, which results in user dissatisfaction, access barriers, and communication problems [6,13,14,15]
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