Experiences of Danish Deaf after Traumatic Events

Denmark has approximately 4,000 Deaf citizens who communicate primarily with Danish Sign Language. Skøt et al. are studying the barriers for the Deaf to access healthcare and psychological services after large scale natural or man-made disasters. Since there has been a shortage of these events in Denmark, they decided to conduct semi-structured interviews with Deaf or hard-of-hearing Danish who had experienced a traumatic event.

Common themes that emerged included emergency responders and healthcare workers with little training or experience working with the Deaf, lack of interpreters and reluctance by the Deaf to use some interpreters due to privacy or compatibility issues, healthcare workers relying on patients' relatives to relay communications, lack of psychologists who were trained both in trauma counseling and working with the Deaf, and lack of support groups for the Deaf. The participants provided many suggestions to improve their access to care, many of which would seem useful for other countries such as the US.



Paywalled
Skøt, L., Jeppesen, T., Mellentin, A. I., & Elklit, A. (2017). Accessibility of medical and psychosocial services following disasters and other traumatic events: experiences of Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in Denmark. Disability and Rehabilitation, 39(24), 2468-2476.

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