Perceptions and Attitudes of Community Leaders on Rehabilitation of Persons with Physical Disabilities in Community, Thasala district, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province

Abstract

Nowadays, the number of persons with disabilities is growing every year. In response, community-based rehabilitation, a strategy which is commonly applied for persons with disabilities in many countries around the world including Thailand is being implemented. This strategy requires the co-operation of all people in the community and the community leaders also. Previously, there were limited studies of community leaders’ perceptions and attitudes on the rehabilitation of persons with physical disabilities in the community, especially in the southern area of Thailand. The aimed of this study was investigated the perceptions and attitudes of the community leaders towards the rehabilitation of persons with physical disabilities in 3 communities of Tha Sala district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, including Tha Kun, Don Tako and Poe Thong sub-districts. In each sub district, there were eight, eight and nine participants, respectively. Data waswere collected by using a focus group interview. The results indicated that the community leaders had good perception on types of persons with disabilities, prevalence, persons who were involved in disabled rehabilitation, problems and how to solve the problems of persons with physical disabilities. In addition, the community leaders agreed that the rehabilitation of disabled in the community remained unsatisfactory because there were so many issues which were needed for further development.  Moreover, most of the community leaders did not satisfy their responsibility to persons with physical disabilities in their community. The benefits of the present study were pointed that the community leaders had the good knowledge and they were interested to solve the problem of disability.  However, the co-operation of persons in the community needed to be achieved in a visible practical work in the future.