Brief reports
Healthcare-seeking Behaviour among Working Women with Disability in Karnataka, India
Authors:
Heavenna Babu ,
The Association of People with Disability (APD-India), IN
About Heavenna
Heavenna Babu is a Public Health researcher and Physiotherapist. Her areas of interest are community based rehabilitation; orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children with disability; women with disability; and spinal cord injury. She holds a MPH Degree from Sree Chitra Institute of Medical Sciences and BPT from Christian Medical College Vellore.
Senthil N.S. Kumar,
The Association of People with Disability, IN
About Senthil N.S.
Dr. Senthil N.S. Kumar is Chief Innovation Officer at The Association of People with Disability (APD) India, Bangalore. He has 18 years of experience in the field of rehabilitation across clinical, academics, research, innovation, commercialization and research grant writing. Dr. Senthil has more than 15 international peer-reviewed journal publications and four Intellectual properties (2 patents & 2 copyrights). He has a PhD in Rehabilitation with a full scholarship from the National University of Malaysia (University Kebangsaan, Malaysia).
Christy Abraham,
The Association of People with Disability, IN
About Christy
Christy Abraham is former CEO of The Association for Persons with Disability, India and currently works as an independent consultant. She has more than 30 years of experience on a range of development and human rights issues, such as, Disability, HIV and AIDS and Women’s Rights. She has significant grounded experience in mobilising communities, formation of networks, community based organisations and building a political perspective on rights, voice, civil society space and access to justice.
Lekha J
The Association of People with Disability, IN
About Lekha
Lekha is the Program Manager in a Livelihood program hosted by APD India, Bangalore. She is an expert on employment of people with disability and manages job readiness programs for disabled people throughout Karnataka.
Her areas of interest are women with disability and working with employers for creating opportunities for disabled persons.
Abstract
Purpose: In India women constitute 44% of the total population with disabilities, which roughly amounts to around 10 million persons. This study explores healthcare-seeking behaviour among working women with disabilities in the country.
Method: A cross-sectional study using a quantitative survey was conducted among 72 working women with disability to explore their patterns of health-seeking behaviour. Women with disability, between 18 and 45 years of age, who were currently working full-time and who had experienced a serious health problem in the past year were included in the study. A pre-structured questionnaire was used for the survey.
Results:Body pain (78%) followed by Urinary Tract Infections (9%) were the commonly cited health problems by the study participants. Eighty percent (80%) of women with disability sought care for their health issues. The actions that they took for their health problems depended on the severity of the disability (p-value-0.001), type of the disability (p-value-0.05), marital status (p-value-0.035) and savings (p-value-0.042) they had set aside for themselves. Monthly family income and years of disability showed correlation with the type of care that they opted for.
Conclusion: Employed women with disability show a positive healthcare seeking behaviour pattern. The action they take in addressing their health issues and the type of care that they opt for depends on factors associated with their disability, marital status and financial stability or available savings.
How to Cite:
Babu, H., Kumar, S.N.S., Abraham, C. and J, L., 2021. Healthcare-seeking Behaviour among Working Women with Disability in Karnataka, India. Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development, 32(1), pp.160–171. DOI: http://doi.org/10.47985/dcidj.441
Published on
06 May 2021.
Peer Reviewed
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