Familiarity with State Regulations regarding Access to Information for Persons with Disabilities in Serbia

Abstract

The quality of life of people with disabilities is largely influenced by their access to information. Good communication with state authorities is the key to knowing state regulations regarding this access, proposing their improvement, and monitoring their application in society. By using a convenient sample of 89 persons with disabilities, this study examined the extent to which the participants were familiar with these regulations, and whether this familiarity could be explained in terms of the quality of the participants' communication with state authorities concerning their access to information, as well as several background variables regarding the participants, including their gender, age, and educational level completed. It was found that the majority of participants were not familiar with these regulations. Path analysis evidenced the positive and significant direct influence of communication quality on familiarity with regulations (0.356,p lt 0.01), with the former positively influenced by age (40-49) and educational level completed (upper-secondary) to a significant degree (corresponding regression weights were 0.432,p lt 0.01, and 0.171,p lt 0.05, respectively). The path model applied could explain 12.7% of the variability of the familiarity in question. Implications for research and practice are included.