Attitudes of employers towards people with visual impairment: a scoping review.
Claire L Castle
PMID 39628549WHAT IT FOUND
Employers consistently hold negative or neutral attitudes towards hiring people with visual impairment, often driven by ignorance about how work tasks are performed.
While direct experience and vocational rehabilitation support improve attitudes, implicit biases remain strong even after brief educational interventions.
Key findings
01Employers exhibit strong negative implicit attitudes, associating competence with sighted people and incompetence with people with visual impairment, which persists even in those who have hired blind employees.
02Lack of knowledge is a primary barrier: 82.3% of surveyed hiring managers did not know how any listed work tasks could be performed by an employee with visual impairment.
03Communication with vocational rehabilitation services and having a personal relationship with someone with visual impairment significantly increases the odds of hiring someone with visual impairment.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Most included studies relied on self-selecting samples of employers, who may already have positive attitudes or experience with disability, potentially underestimating the extent of bias in the general population. The review is geographically skewed towards the USA, with limited data from other regions, reducing global applicability. Definitions and measurements of 'attitude' varied across studies, making direct comparisons difficult. The search was restricted to English-language publications from 2018 onwards, potentially missing relevant earlier or non-English evidence.
Declared interests
The authors declare no financial support was received for the research, authorship, or publication of this article.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that improving employer knowledge alone will eliminate bias. The review shows that while education can improve explicit attitudes and stated intent, implicit negative associations often persist even after interventions and direct hiring experience.