Peer-reviewed article

Caregiver’s perception of barriers to implementation of the 'Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act, 2016 in India'

Urmila M. Chauhan, Kalaiselvi Selvaraj, Meenakshi Girish, Akash Bang, Abhijit Choudhary et al. · 8 Apr 2021

Abstract

This study was planned to study caregiver’s perception of barriers to implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act, 2016 in India. An online cross-sectional survey was carried out among parents of children with disabilities. A prevalidated structured and semi-structured questionnaire was used. Results of structured items are summarized as mean (SD), frequencies and percentages. For open-ended questions, responses were analyzed by manual content analysis; results were presented in the form of a framework. From 316 responses, 44.8% of respondents availed disability certificate however utilization was largely limited to travel and educational settings. 82.2% of respondents were not aware of any of the national health schemes. Only 6.2% of children could engage in play activity at the playground. Accessibility, health issues and social stigma were the main barriers to recreation for children with disabilities. While 25.8% of children did not attend school at all, 58.1% of children attending normal school were facing difficulties due to lack of appropriate school infrastructure, transportation issues, and untrained teachers. Responses to open-ended questions were predominantly related to needs of homegrown research, better infrastructure, and trained teachers in schools, life security of child and development of national registry for better health information. The study highlights the importance of implementation of concrete strategies at every level of policy decisions to create more awareness regarding RPWD act in India.