Self-Reported Accommodation Needs for Patients with Disabilities in Primary Care.

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Disability Studies
• Primary Care Medicine

Background:

• Primary care settings present environmental barriers for people with disabilities.
• Existing legal frameworks have not ensured adequate identification or provision of necessary accommodations.
• There is a critical need to understand disability status and accommodation requirements within primary care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess patient-reported disability status.
• To identify specific accommodation needs among primary care patients.
• To evaluate the utility of a novel questionnaire for identifying disability and accommodation requirements.

Main Methods:

• Developed an electronic health record-based Disability and Accommodations Questionnaire.
• Administered a paper-based version to patients at a primary care clinic.
• Collected data from 541 patients during wellness visits between March and August 2022.

Main Results:

• 13% of patients self-reported a disability.
• 54.2% of patients with disabilities reported needing at least one accommodation.
• Commonly reported disabilities included mental health (4.8%) and hearing (4.6%); requested accommodations focused on communication, cognition, and mobility.

Conclusions:

• The developed questionnaire effectively identified disability presence, types, and accommodation needs in a primary care setting.
• Findings highlight significant unmet accommodation needs for people with disabilities in primary care.
• This tool can improve healthcare accessibility and patient-centered care for individuals with disabilities.