The need and its influence factors for community-based rehabilitation services for disabled persons in one district in Beijing.

Purpose: To explore the needs for basic community-based rehabilitation services for disabled persons in Xuanwu District, Beijing, China, and to identify factors which influence disabled persons to accept rehabilitation services.

Method: One hundred and eight disabled persons were selected by systematic sampling and simple random sampling to assess their needs for community-based rehabilitation services.

Results: Of the interviewees, 57.4% needed the community-based rehabilitation services, but only 13.9% took advantage of it. The main factors influencing the interviewees to accept these services were cost (P < 0.05), knowledge about rehabilitation medicine (P < 0.05); and the belief in the therapeutic benefit of the community-based rehabilitation service (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: A considerable gap exists between the supply of community-based rehabilitation services in Beijing and the needs for these services by disabled residents underscoring the need for improved availability, and for additional research.