Perception of Ghanaian healthcare students towards the learning of sign language as course

Abstract

Communication remains among the top barriers to healthcare for deaf people. One of the reasons is healthcare professionals lack the competence to communicate health information in sign language. Part of the measures to alleviate this challenge was the introduction of sign language into the curriculum of health students. The perceptions of healthcare students on this initiative were assessed in this study. The study used cross-sectional online survey to collect data from 666 randomly sampled health students in Ghana. Participants were recruited through social media platforms. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square was used to analyze the differences between categorical variables at the rate of 95% confidence intervals (p = 0.05), and binary logistic was performed to ascertain predictors of health student’s perception about hospital should provide professional interpreters than students learning GhSL. The study found that about 9 in 10 of all health students support the introduction of GHSL as a course. Student nurses perceive more benefits of learning GHSL to the deaf community than all health students. Logistic regression revealed that students’ midwives were 2.183 times significantly more likely to support the view that hospitals should provide professional interpreters instead of health students learning GHSL as compared with students who study Nursing (AOR: 2.183, CI: 1.104–4.316, p = 0.025). To sustain the interest of students in the learning of GhSL. Appropriate teaching and learning materials should be made available. Likewise, competent instructors should be recruited in the teaching of GhSL. This can be done through a collaborative effort between stakeholders including KNUST, NMC, and the ministry of health.