Evolution of attitudes toward people with disabilities in healthcare practitioners and other occupations from 2006 to 2024: A comparative study
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Purpose
Healthcare practitioners have shown implicit and explicit attitudes against people with disabilities. This study aimed to examine how these attitudes evolved between 2006 and 2024 across occupation groups and as a function of sex.
Methods
Data from 660,430 participants were analyzed, including 20,405 clinicians, 9357 rehabilitation assistants, and 630,668 individuals in other occupations. Implicit attitudes were assessed using D-scores derived from the Disability Implicit Association Test of Project Implicit. Explicit attitudes were assessed using a Likert scale. Generalized additive models were conducted to examine the evolution of attitudes over time.
Results
The preference for people without disabilities showed a linear decrease over time. No such effect was found for implicit attitudes. However, non-linear interactions between time, occupation group, and sex suggest a complex effect of time on attitudes that should be interpreted in the context of each specific combination of occupation group and sex, rather than assuming a uniform trend. Attitudes toward people with physical disabilities were less favorable than toward people with general disabilities. Older age was associated with less favorable implicit attitudes and more favorable explicit attitudes toward people with disabilities. Rehabilitation assistants had less favorable implicit attitudes than other occupation groups, while clinicians showed no evidence of a significant difference. In contrast, explicit attitudes were more favorable among rehabilitation assistants but less favorable among clinicians.
Conclusions
The contrast between the evolution of implicit and explicit attitudes suggests that implicit bias remains resistant to change despite increased positive consideration and awareness of people with disabilities. Understanding these patterns may inform training programs aimed at reducing bias among healthcare practitioners.
