THE ROLE OF REHABILITATION NURSES TO THE ARCHITECTURAL ACCESSIBILITY PROMOTION

Abstract

Background: the rehabilitation nurses are decisive to the promotion of accessibility trough architectural barriers elimination, which promotes the reintegration of people with reduced mobility. Objectives: to understand nurses concernment about the elimination of architectural barriers. Methodology: a quantitative, descriptive, exploratory study using an accidental non-probabilistic snowball sampling method, composed of 56 nurses. For data collection, an ad hoc self-administered questionnaire was applied, using Google forms, in November 2016. Results: 60.7% of nurses don’t know whom to adress to eliminate barriers and 58.9% did not implement any intervention in that sense. Verified significant statistical differences that favor the rehabilitation nurses concerning their knowledge about: specific legislation about acessibility (p=0.000) and whom to adress to request the elimination of architectural barriers in the community (p=0.024). Conclusion: the accessibility and the elimination of architectural barriers should be a part of the daily pratice of nurses.

Keywords

• rehabilitation nursing
• architectural accessibility
• disabled persons
• mobility limitation