VOCATIONAL INDEPENDENCE IN HIRING PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES: A SCOPING REVIEW

J.-A. Deray¹, A.L. Evangelista¹, N. Hijalda¹, I. Javier¹, J.E. Lachica¹, B.G. Libero¹, M.A. Milan¹, B.K. Dayrit², H. Labao², J.V. Ramos²

¹Our Lady of Fatima University, College of Physical Therapy, Quezon City, Philippines, ²Our Lady of Fatima University, College of Physical Therapy, Valenzuela City, Philippines

Background: This Scoping Review intends to review published works on vocational independence of persons with disabilities and its relation and influence in the hiring of persons with disabilities in order to minimize bias and provide knowledge for readers and future researchers which will be beneficial for the employment and regularization of persons with disabilities in work setting.

Purpose: The study aims to review the current body of knowledge on the vocational independence of persons with disabilities in relation to hiring from the perspective of the employers.

Methods: Comprehensive searches were conducted in PubMed, ScienceDirect, EBSCOHost, Cochrane, and PEDro. Secondary sources and hand search was done in Researchgate and Google Scholar. Specifically,
(1) free full-text articles related to persons with disabilities
(2) should discuss the persons with disabilities’ vocational independence and employment and hiring process
(3) Study designs should be Cohort, Prospective, RCT, Cross-sectional, Retrospective, and Quantitative Survey published in the English language from a period of January 2016 to March 2022 will be included.
Articles that did not discuss the vocational independence of persons with disabilities and actual hiring practices will be excluded. The quality of each included study was evaluated using Rayyan as primary instrument and Data Charting that summarized the gathered data.

Results: A total of 108 articles, 11 articles were included in the study. The most common findings were that employers/managers often mention “competence”, “adaptability” and “work performance”. These terms are highly associated with vocational independence, therefore unifying and standardizing the criteria for the hiring of Persons with Disabilities. Outcomes such as Ability to perform the job, Adaptability, Commitment, Benefits, and Mental stability were commonly mentioned and therefore highly significant to the hiring of Persons with Disabilities.

Conclusions: It was proven that various factors should be considered in the employment of persons with disabilities. It was also mentioned that several concepts, theory, and policies in relation to vocational independence have a high impact on hiring persons with disabilities.

Implications: This may aide policy makers on promoting employment of person with a disability in various industry.

Funding acknowledgements: None

Keywords:
Person with disability
Employment
Physical Therapy

Topics:
Disability & rehabilitation
Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Professional issues: business skills, leadership, advocacy & change management

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: This is a scoping review