By Carli Friedman, CQL Director of Research
Ableism is extremely prominent in our society, including in health care. Ableism in health care is particularly problematic as it contributes to health disparities among people with disabilities. While occupational and physical therapy assistants are increasingly common in rehabilitation practice, less is known about the implicit (unconscious) disability attitudes of occupational and physical therapy assistants. For this reason, the aim of this study was to examine ableism among occupational and physical therapy assistants. To do so, we analyzed explicit (conscious) and implicit disability attitude data from 6,113 occupational and physical therapy assistants.
We found that the overwhelming majority of occupational and physical therapy assistants – 80% – had implicit prejudice towards people with disabilities (see figure below). In fact, 42% of occupational and physical therapy assistants strongly preferred nondisabled people.
Implicit Disability Attitudes of Occupational and Physical Therapy Assistants
Despite high levels of implicit bias among occupational and physical therapy assistants, most occupational and physical therapy assistants did not consciously think they were prejudiced; this makes it much more difficult to reduce people’s prejudice. “The first step… is to understand the current state of explicit and implicit biases among rehabilitation professionals so that concrete action may be undertaken to improve relationships, interactions, and environments for people with disabilities during healthcare utilization” (Feldner et al., 2021, p. 16).
This article is a summary of the following journal manuscript: Feldner, H. A., VanPuymbrouck, L., & Friedman, C. (2022). Explicit and implicit disability attitudes of occupational and physical therapy assistants. Disability and Health Journal, 15(1), 101217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dhjo.2021.101217
Ableism of Occupational and Physical Therapy Assistants