A positive attitude towards persons with disabilities can contribute to ensuring equal access to healthcare and promoting person-centred care.Understanding the determinants of such attitudes among nurses and physicians is essential for fostering inclusion and enhancing professional development. This study aimed to identify differences in attitudes toward persons with disabilities and the key factors shaping them. This cross-sectional study, conducted in 2022–2024, surveyed 424 healthcare professionals in Poland (236 nurses, 188 physicians) using the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons with Disabilities (MAS-PL). Multivariate analyses (MANCOVA, ANCOVA) examined the effect of profession, years of clinical experience, gender, education, and personal contact with persons with disabilities on emotional, cognitive, and behavioural attitude components. Both profession and years of service significantly affected emotional, cognitive, and behavioural attitude dimensions (ΛWilks = 0.95, p 0.050). Attitudes toward persons with disabilities among healthcare professionals were statistically, significantly associated with professional role, years of clinical experience, education, and gender. However the effect sizes were small and not particularly strong, so these findings have limited practical significance Age, place of residence and previous contact with persons with disabilities were not statistically significantly associated with attitudes. This indicates that additional factors, such as organisational context, workplace culture, or implicit biases, may play an important role and should be explored in future research. To promote inclusive nursing practice, educational strategies should combine structured disability content with experiential and reflective learning across all stages of professional training. Continuous professional development programs that cultivate empathy and awareness may further strengthen inclusive, patient-centred care. Not applicable.
Radlińska et al. (Sat,) studied this question.