국내 청각장애인의 보건의료서비스 이용 실태에 대한 심층면접조사

Qualitative Study for Health Care Service Use among the Hearing Impaired in Korea

Hearing impaired people have many difficulties in using health care services because of the disability of communication. Since the use of appropriate health care services are essential elements for disease prevention and health promotion, it is important to investigate their state of health care service use. The purpose of this study is to find ways to increase the accessibility of the hearing impaired to medical services by identifying the obstacles to proper health care service use through qualitative study. The study participants consisted of 14 people with severe hearing impairments. One in-depth interview was conducted per participant, and each interview was recorded and documented. Based on the documents, categorized the responses and drew out the core finding responses within the same category. The study showed that hearing impaired people have the greatest difficulty in communication when using health care services. The negative experiences during medical care and the discomfort in using sign language interpreters were also found to hinder proper access to medical care. The health of the hearing-impaired people is heavily influenced by social and environmental factors, and they have many limitations in the use of health care services. Establishment of system for active use of health care services for hearing impaired people is necessary.