The perception of a health disability within society in the context of volunteering and the attitude of Czech and Polish university students to persons with a health disability

Abstract

At present, handicapped people create a significant group of persons in all states and countries of the world. The percentage of those persons in the individual EU countries varies from 5 to 19% (depending on the different criteria when assessing the disability). Generally, we can say that approximately 38 million people in the EU, or every tenth European of all age categories, are handicapped (Michalík 2013). In the Czech Republic, the number of the handicapped persons is approximately 10% based on qualified estimates; thus, that amounts to approximately 1 million inhabitants of the Czech Republic. However, other persons must be added to this number as most of the handicapped persons live in families and the caregivers are also more or less affected by the psychological, emotional, social and economic results of a disability. Thus, it is obvious that caring for these persons should be the effort of all of society in the fields of social care, respite care, and health care, as well as activities such as volunteering.