A Community Based Study on the Prevalence of Disability and Rehabilitative Services Provided to the Disabled Person in the Rural Area of Tamil Nadu

Background: In the past three decades, the concept of disability has shifted from individual impairment to a more social phenomenon. Thus disability became a complex phenomenon. It is social problem where the disabled population become a liability to the society. Interventions usually included medical rehabilitation and the provision of social assistance. Poverty can cause disability with its associated malnutrition, poor health services, improper sanitation, unsafe living and working conditions.

Objective:

1. To assesses the socio demographic distribution of disability.

2. To study the pattern and extent of rehabilitative services provided to the disabled persons in rural area of Tamil Nadu.

Materials and Method: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted between August 2010-and December 2011 in randomly selected 19 villages of Lalgudi Taluk of Trichy district Tamil Nadu state, India.

Method: The age group of population between 5- 70 years were included. The minimum sample size was 15600. After adding the non response error of 5% another 780 people were added and total studied population was 16,404 at the field practice area of Valadi a Rural Health Training Centre (RHTC), of Chennai Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Trichy. Data were analysed by means, proportions and Chi-Square test.

Results: In the study area it was noticed that overall disability rate was 0.85%, and both male and female disability rate was almost same (0.8%). The studied population comprised of Hindu (82.4%), Christians (12.8%) and Muslims (2.8%). The community status of studied population majority 86 (61.4%) were belonging to Backward category (BC). The physical status of disability showed the majority of them were locomotor type (44.2%) followed by mental disorder (27.8%), Deaf & Dumb (13.5%), and Visual (10.0%). Majority of the disabilities were due to the congenital causes 85 (60.7%), second most common cause was accident 29 (20.7%). Out of 140 disabled, only 61 (43.5%) were assisted with financial support, and remaining 79 (56.5%) were not supported by any type of assistance.

Conclusion and Recommendation: Disability has emerged as an important public health problem in our study area. There is a large gap found between the felt need of the disabled and service provided to them by the government and other organizations. There is a need for community assistance and community based rehabilitation (CBR).