Importance of most frequent needs of the disabled in shaping areas of support in public health. Part. II. Disability as a consequence of dysfunction in the state of health disrupting daily functioning based on selected health and socio-demographic characteristics - interdisciplinary problems in the domain of public health.

Introduction: The disabled are a group with heterogeneous structure of causes and needs. Assessment of these causes and needs requires prospective studies in order to use the results within public health actions, indispensable for pursuing the challenges of sustained development. The aim of the study was determination of the problems and needs of the disabled in various areas of their functioning, according to such characteristics as: gender, age, causes of disability, place of residence, level of education, formal status of disability, and socio-economic standard.
Material and Methods: The examined population were 676 disabled aged from 19-98, including 56.4% of females, and 43,6% of males; rural inhabitants constituted 38.0%. The study was conducted by the method of purposive sampling, using the following research tools: the Disability Questionnaire, and the Scientific-Research Protocol. Statistical analyses were performed by means of the statistical package IBM SPSS Statistics v. 27; the p values p<0.05 were considered statistically significant.
Results: The most frequently occurring problems were material difficulties, lack of rehabilitation in the place of residence, hindered access to a physician, difficulties with settling official matters, loneliness, too infrequent contacts with the family, negative attitudes of the local community towards disability, and family disagreements. Some of these problems were significantly more frequent among rural inhabitants.
Conclusions: The majority of the problems hindering daily life of the disabled fell within social rather than medical categories. Age, level of education, degree of disability, legal status, and material standard were most frequent determinants of the occurrence of health and social problems according to the place of residence.