The Sociodemographic Factors Related to Disability of Applicants of Welfare Benefits in Greece: A Cross-Sectional Survey Based on the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) 2.0

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The aim of the present study was to report on the prevalence of disability and its association with sociodemographic factors among welfare benefit applicants in Greece. The study also compared the disability scores between different health conditions using the WHODAS 2.0 (12-item version), a biopsychosocial-model-based measure., METHODS: The Greek WHODAS 2.0, 12-item version, was administered by interview. A three-member medical committee assessed the medical records of the applicants and assigned a disability percentage based on the biomedical measure of disability percentage determination (Barema scale)., RESULTS: The majority of the participants were female (56.65%). Certain health conditions were presented more frequently among welfare benefit applicants (mental health disorders and neoplasms). The domains with the highest rate of difficulty were the "participation" and "life activities" domains. Significant differences were found between WHODAS 2.0 and Barema scores for all eight different health condition categories. The factorial ANOVA (8x2) showed a significant interaction effect between health condition category and gender with respect to the WHODAS 2.0 score (F = 19.033, p