Nursing students’ attitudes towards persons with physical disabilities. Cross-sectional study

Introduction:
Disability does not concern the life of an individual, but it refers to interpersonal relationships, interactions between people with disabilities and the surrounding physical and social environment. The social inclusion of people with disabilities is possible when the barriers that hinder their everyday life are removed. Among them there are negative social attitudes and marginalization of people with disabilities which can become particularly acute.

Material and methods:
The aim of the research was ascertain nursing students’ attitudes towards persons with physical disabilities. The research comprised 7 universities educating in the field of nursing in Poland. In total, 1323 nursing students of undergraduate and graduate studies were surveyed. The research was conducted online in the period from October 2021 to March 2022. The study used the Polish adaptation of the scale used to assess attitudes towards persons with disabilities; namely, the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Towards Persons with Disabilities (MAS-PL).

Results:
Globally, the average score obtained by students on the MAS-PL scale was 82.69. The greatest differentiation of responses was shown in the emotions and cognitive subscale, while the smallest one was seen in the behavioural subscale. There was no significant relationship between the results of the MAS-PL scale and gender and the age of respondents. More positive attitudes were declared by graduate students than by undergraduate students. Statistically, there is a significantly higher global score on the scale and subscale of emotions shown by students living in a city with over 100,000 inhabitants compared to students living in the countryside.

Conclusions:
Place of residence and the level of study are factors related to the attitudes of nursing students towards people with physical disabilities. The attitudes of students majoring in nursing should be shaped during the implementation of the curriculum and the creation of projects enabling mutual relationships between students and persons with disabilities.