The Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities in Healthcare: Perceptions of Nursing Students from Poland – A Pilot Study

Abstract

Awareness of the rights of patients, including those with intellectual disabilities (ID), among healthcare professionals is a challenge for healthcare professionals. People with ID are particularly vulnerable to marginalization and neglect, due to communication and cognitive problems, and low levels of knowledge among healthcare professionals about the specific nature of their needs and functioning. The lack of knowledge among healthcare staff about existing patient rights has a significant impact on the exercise or violation of these rights. The research aimed to analyze the views of nursing students (NS) from Poland on the rights of patients with ID. The study was conducted in a group of 120 NS using a survey questionnaire. Integral parts of the survey questionnaire were the Beliefs about Rights of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities in Healthcare Scale (Beliefs Scale - BS), Social Distance Scale (Distance Scale - DS), and a sociodemographic questionnaire. The study showed that the relationship between views on the rights of people with ID and social distance towards them may play an important role in shaping the attitudes of future nurses towards this patient group.