Regional Formation and Development Studies

The World Health Organization acknowledges that the health of people in the European region has improved significantly, but not everywhere and not equally for all. It has set a strategic goal to improve the health of all, and reduce health inequalities. In meeting this goal, Lithuania purposefully strives to reduce inequalities in the health condition of individuals attributed to different social groups, and differences in accessibility to health care. The primary focus is on people with disabilities. In compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Lithuania seeks to provide people with disabilities with health-care services and programmes of the same availability, quality and level which are provided or applied to other individuals, free of charge or at a reasonable price. However, research has revealed a great deal of problems in fulfilling this obligation. The present article focuses on physicians’ experience, and aims to understand, from a physician’s perspective, the financial opportunities and barriers that they encounter in rendering health-care services to people with disabilities. A survey involving 107 physicians was carried out in 2019 and 2020. The research results showed that Lithuania is making progress in increasing funding to the health-care system in a targeted way covering a wide range of its domains. Therefore, physicians have plenty of opportunities to refer patients with disabilities to other professionals for consultation without any financial constraints, to prescribe reimbursable medication, to carry out laboratory and radiological tests, to give instructions to caregivers on patient care, and to hospitalise a patient or transfer him/her to another hospital. The situation is somewhat worse with prescribing the most appropriate reimbursable measures and reimbursable rehabilitation treatment, and the worst situation has emerged in the sphere of reimbursable psychological and social assistance, because these services are usually granted a minimum level of funding. The trends established verify that there is a strong need to develop a more effective public health policy in Lithuania, to reform the health-care system, and to invest in improving its quality, so that the country can take more measures to ensure the health of the population and the inclusive equality of people with disabilities in the health-care system.

One of the most important aspects influencing the quality of life is education. The paper includes the research results from an analysis of how the level of education affects quality of life, and the development of different initiatives and values. An analysis of scientific literature is performed, with a more detailed analysis of data from Latvia, taking into account the level of household income and satisfaction with life. Research methods applied: analysis of scientific findings, analysis of time-series on several indicators of development related to different education indicators, and income indicators depending on educational level, with a calculation of income confidence interval with a probability of 0.95 for households with different educational levels. Data used in the research: data from databases of the Official Statistics Portal of the Republic of Latvia, Household Finance and Consumption Survey. The research results indicate that households in Latvia with a higher education have a significantly higher income than households with primary or no education.

The spectrum of the links between the quality of life and health has been expanding due to the phenomenon of health acquiring features of a social phenomenon and growing complexity. The research evidenced that health was considered to be one of the most important, and often the most important, dimension of the quality of life. To more comprehensively identify the health-related factors that affected the quality of life in general, the concept of the health-related quality of life has been developed. In our research 1763 children filled KIDSCREEN52 surveys which evidence tendency as follows: even though two thirds of the children did not indicate they had health disorders, only one third of them assessed their health as excellent and very good. This demonstrates that, in the children’s assessment of health, both the absence of a disease or disability and also psychological and social factors are important.

Quality of life characterizes the conditions of human existence, the level of satisfaction of needs. Children with disability restrict ability of the families to meet their needs. Parents of these children quite often are limited in their employment and education opportunities, and their resources, they meet with restrictions in all areas if life. Such a situation has developed not only because of the socio-economic situation in the country, but also due to the lack of interest and inadequate support. The aim of the paper is to analyse the family quality of life of the families with disabled children with in regions of Latvia. Empirical data were obtained by structured interviews with 272 families. The research shows that the situation of the families with disabled children differs in different regions of Latvia. Families are supported by the state and municipalities, bet the support in the areas of emotional, physical and social wellbeing does not recompense the influence of special needs of the disabled children on the family quality of life.

The very first scientific data gathered in exploratory research of canine therapy in Lithuania is presented in the article. One case qualitative study is presented. Qualitative one case study was applied using different research methods: narrative and content analyses. Narrative analysis was used to analyze data gathered from educators, psychologist and mother of the child after each canine therapy session. Narrative interpretation was applied for canine therapy observation report, when each five minutes the changes of child were described. Report of canine therapy observation divulged that sessions were important for child’s greater social development, verbal expression and cognitive development. Scale of emotional evaluation showed that canine therapy sessions have great importance in developing positive emotions.