engleski

Maslow's hierarchy of people with disability: Are they different from people without a disability?

Introduction: Equity in health cannot be achieved without satisfying the needs of persons with disabilities following Maslow's hierarchy. Despite that, people with a disability are put into special categories such as handicapped, disabled or a “person/child with special needs”. However, a lot of effort has been put in from the profession to replace these stigmatised terms with milder and more acceptable ones. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of nurses on human needs and to check if their disability terminology was in accordance with their level of education. Methods: In this cross- sectional study (N= 160) we used an original questionnaire “HNPD”(α= 0.84). The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to analyse the differences between the knowledge and attitudes of the nurses and the terminology and basic human needs. The Spearman rank correlation was used for associations between variables. Results: The nurses showed good knowledge about human needs of people with disabilities (Me= 121.0 ; Iq= 15.5). Nurses with a higher level of education showed a higher level of knowledge about terminology (p= 0.002). There was no correlation between the educational level and their knowledge of the physiological, safety and affiliative human needs (p= 0.130), but there is a correlation with self-actualization (p< 0.001). Conclusion: A positive nursing attitude of valid terminology and a good knowledge about Maslow's hierarchy confirm the importance of continuous education in nursing. This may have an impact on the quality of health care for people with a disability with positive outcomes on global health.

people with disability, human needs, terminology, nursing, education

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