Challenges in Providing Rehabilitation Services for People with Disabilities in Iran: A Qualitative Study

Introduction: World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes disability as a global public health issue and a development priority, but unfortunately, the evidence shows that people with disabilities (PWD) often have lower levels of health than the general population.This study targeted to identify challenges in providing rehabilitation services for People with Disabilities.

Materials and Methods: This article was undertaken on a qualitative content analysis. Twenty one participants were selected through purposeful sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews from June 2014 to July 2015. Interviews continued until data saturation. Data analysis was performed by MAXQDA version 10.

Results: Challenges to providing of rehabilitation services were the most important for PWD that needed to receive medical rehabilitation services. These challenges were grouped into six categories of poor knowledge, negative attitude to disability, insufficient support of PWD, individual problems of providers, problems of accessibility and cost.

Conclusions: A proper rehabilitation plan requires common understanding of the challenges in providing of rehabilitation services for PWD. Understanding these challenges will help policy makers, providers, and PWD and their families consider rehabilitation as an effective component of service provision in health system. Based on findings of this study, further research is recommended to elucidate the challenges affecting provision of rehabilitation services for PWD.