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BOSTON -- More than 80% of U.S. physicians reported that people with significant disabilities have worse quality of life than nondisabled people, an attitude that may contribute to health care disparities among people with disability, according to recent research published in the February issue of
Health Affairs. The first-of-its-kind study surveyed 714 practicing physicians from multiple specialties and locations across the country about their attitudes toward patients with disabilities.
"That physicians have negative attitudes about patients with disability wasn't surprising," says Lisa I. Iezzoni, MD, lead author of the paper and a health care policy researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). "But the magnitude of physicians' stigmatizing views was very disturbing." For more than 20 years, Iezzoni has studied health care experiences and outcomes of people with disability and is herself disabled by multiple sclerosis diagnosed in 1980, her first year in medical school.