The disability rate of different physical impairments and priority of different parts of the body may vary according to the cultural backgrounds. A good scientific guideline should be subjective, distinctive, and suitable to Korean culture. To investigate the general acceptance of different kinds of disability and priority of different parts of the body in Korea, the author conducted a survey on 391 Korean adults from 2000 to 2001.
There were discrepancies between the grades from general acceptance and those from the Korean Welfare Law for the Disabled. Priority was given to the nervous system, chest, eye, back, abdomen, mouth, leg, arm, ear, and nose in descending order. However, the degree of agreement was generally low in either the disability or the priority.
The data from this study can be useful in establishing a new Korean disability evaluation system, which should be suitable to Korean culture and systematic in the classification of the types and degree of the disability.
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