People with disabilities raise important and special humanitarian approaches. There is a strong necessity for an epidemiological and sociological study of disabled population with regard to disease distribution and the patients' social profile based on the bio-psycho-social model of health and illness. Adverse economic data, low social cohesion, and consequently, social exclusion are often observed within the specific population. According to the quantitative research conducted, the population's nosological profile has serious effects on patients' everyday lives and is directly related to social parameters. Fundamental social factors and access to health services affect people with a degree of disability of over 67% health in terms of disease prevention and treatment. At the same time, social determinants seem to negatively affect their health and treatment. There is a clear need for an information technology system that will monitor and produce appropriate key performance indicators to help design appropriate policies for the specific population.
TopIntroduction
Lately, there has been an increasing interest towards health and ill regarding their social dimension. Moreover, the World Health Organization (WHO 1958) definition of health given by the World Health Organization (WHO 1958) has made clear that health is intertwined with social well-being. The changes of the nosological model during the last few decades -the eradication of several infectious diseases together with the appearance of new chronic diseases requiring long-lasting health care- demand holistic medical treatment. In fact, according to the new bio-psycho-social model used for the interpretation of health and illness and in contradiction to the previous biomedical health model (Brandby, 2010), there are not only biological factors that are being involved (genetic predisposition, viral or germ infections) but also psychological (cognitive processes, emotions, behaviors) and social factors (social norms, social values concerning health, social status, nationality etc.) (Nettleton, 2020; Phellas, 2009). Without any doubt, there is a decisive necessity of an epidemiological study of the disease distribution and the morbidity within a population. More specifically, a socio-epidemiological study of diseases is considered to be more than necessary, within the target population of West Athens, based on results derived from researches and indicate that West Athens concentrates on socially disadvantaged groups, such as refugees, economic migrants, Roma, etc., who mainly face poverty, unemployment, lack of access to products and services, low social cohesion and consequently, social exclusion. Such a study would bring to light significant humanitarian needs and challenges closely related to the disabled population.
Based on the observations mentioned above, and since there have not been any similar studies, it was considered essential to conduct a survey that aims at analyzing the social-epidemiological dimension of the diseases among the population of West Athens in Attica with a degree of disability of over 67%.
The objectives of this study were: a) the analysis of demographic characteristics of the respondents (year of birth, area of residence, nationality, religion), b) the study of the crucial social factors of their health/disease (education level, working status, economic status, living conditions, eating habits, alcohol-coffee-tea consumption, smoking habits, sleep habits, television consumption, physical activity, anxiety or social stress, delinquency, official or unofficial social support, accessibility to health services c) the epidemiological study of the diseases bared by the respondents and due to which might have been hospitalized.
The survey was based on the quantitative research method. The target population of the survey consisted of approximately 1000 individuals. Among them, only a sample of 203 individuals was selected, which were suffering from a disease at that time and were coming to the Primary Health Committee of West Athens to get evaluated and rated according to their disease.
The method we used to collect data was through an appropriate questionnaire in web-based and paper formats. The questionnaire was anonymous and consisted of 87 closed-ended and open-ended questions respective to the study's purpose and objectives.
The survey was conducted in the Primary Health Committee of West Athens premises. The respondents were evaluated to obtain a disability degree of over 67%, based on their disease. The survey process lasted for about three months, and the results were collected and edited through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS version 19).
Two hundred three answers were collected in total, and target-population consisted of all categories of people, irrespective of their sex, age, education level etc.
The difficulties and limitations experienced during this survey concern the following: concise time invested in answering the questionnaire on behalf of the respondents, some of the open-ended questions had been left incomplete and the fact that individuals with a severe motor disability did not participate in the survey due to lack of accessibility (they were evaluated by the Health Committee in another place separately).