Being disabled is a situation stemming from physical, mental or psychological functional or structural differences, which makes it difficult for the individual to participate in professional life. According to the 2011 data of the Statistical Institution of Turkey, 12.29% of the population of Turkey consists of the disabled individuals. This study has been conducted to determine the attitudes and behaviors of the Medical Faculty students of İnonu University towards the disabled individuals. The study is a cross-sectional study, and has been conducted with the Medical Faculty students of İnonu University in 2015 February-March. The minimum sampling size formula has been calculated for the 1298 Medical Faculty students of İnonu University in the study period. 658 people participated to the study. Data collection has been performed with the questionnaire technique under interview, and the questionnaire consisted of two sections. In the first section, the questions were about the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. In the second section, the Attitude Scale for the Disabled, which was developed by Dökmen Z. in 2000, was used. In the analysis of the data, the t Test and the One-Way Variance Analysis has been used for the independent variables. The mean age of the participants was 21.94±2.28. 53.9%of the students weremale, and 46.1% were female. 31.5% of the students stated that they had a disabled individual in their families or vicinity, 3.7% of them stated that they were disabled. The average point of the students who had disabled individuals around them was 66.66±19.84, the average point of the group which did not have was 68.90±19.61 (p>0.05). The average point of the group who were disabled was 70.14±19.00, and the average point of the group who were not was 68.18±19.74 (p>0.05). According to our study, the Medical Faculty students had positive attitudes towards the disabled individuals. Young age, female gender, elementary family and plenty of siblings were the reasons for positive attitude. Social activities are needed to be added to the curricula of the Medical Faculty students who are in close interaction with every layer of the society to ensure that their attitudes become more positive towards the disabled.
Key words: Disabled, medical faculty students, attitude
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