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The effect of medical education on the attitudes of medical students towards disabled people
Author(s) -
DUCKWORTH S. C.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2923.1988.tb00793.x
Subject(s) - disabled people , psychology , learning disabled , positive attitude , scale (ratio) , medical school , family medicine , medical education , significant difference , medicine , gerontology , social psychology , psychiatry , learning disability , applied psychology , life style , physics , quantum mechanics
Summary. The negative attitudes of society towards disability and the resulting prejudicial behaviour affects the lives of disabled people. One of the declared aims of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Southampton is to improve attitudes. Hence, an attempt has been made to assess differences in the attitudes held by first‐ and fourth‐year medical students, senior house officers and members of the general public towards disabled people. The measurement instrument used was the ‘Attitudes Towards Disabled Persons (ATDP) Scale’. The total number of subjects in the survey was 428, of whom 263 (61%) responded. No significant differences were found between the attitudes of the four groups studied. However, a subpopulation of subjects who agreed with the statement that ‘Disabled people cause more problems to doctors than non‐disabled people’ had attitudes which were significantly more negative.