Pharmacy Students' Attitudes Toward Persons With Disabilities and Perceptions of Right to Self-Determination

Abstract

Objective: As the number and proportion of persons with disabilities are increasing, pharmacists are becoming responsible for providing optimal pharmaceutical care services to persons with disabilities as health care professionals. The purpose of this study was to assess pharmacy school students' perceptions of the right to self-determination of persons with disabilities and to identify the factors that affect their attitudes and perceptions.

Methods: A survey was conducted with 370 pharmacy students. The revised Korean versions of the Scale of Attitudes towards Disabled Person (SADP) and the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Form O (ATDP-O) were used to measure attitude toward persons with disabilities, and the perception of the right to self-determination of persons with disabilities was measured in two subdomains, 'absoluteness of right' and 'social support', which were developed by education and ethics experts.

Results: A total of 363 respondents were included for analysis. It was found that the more experiences the students had in contact with persons with disabilities in the past, the more positive attitudes they had towards persons with disabilities. In addition, understanding of self-determination and positive attitudes towards persons with disabilities were deduced to be statistically significant factors affecting perceptions of both the ‘absoluteness of right’ and ‘social support’ to persons with disabilities.

Conclusion: Since experience is associated with positive perceptions of pharmacy school students on the right of persons with disabilities to self-determination, education and activities are needed for students to understand and have experiences with persons with disabilities in curriculum or noncurricular courses.