Access to healthcare services by people with intellectual disabilities: a rural-urban comparison

Access to healthcare services is poor both for adults with intellectual disabilities and for people living in rural areas. Adults with intellectual disabilities in rural areas may therefore be at a double disadvantage. Representative data were analysed from 39 rural and 633 urban participants from Scotland. Information on demographics, healthcare, and access to services were collected from face-to-face interviews and primary care notes. Both direct comparison and binary logistic regression showed the rural sample to have had significantly more contact with primary (odds ratio = 4.02, 95% CI 1.56-10.35, P = 0.004) and secondary health care (OR = 3.93, 95% CI = 1.81-8.55, P = 0.001). Contact with allied healthcare professionals was not significantly different, except that people in the rural sample were significantly more likely to have had recent contact with a dentist and an optician. Contrary to the original hypothesis, adults with intellectual disabilities living in rural areas were not found to be disadvantaged.