• Andrzej Myśliwiec, Edward Saulicz, Michał Kuszewski, Andrzej Knapik, Gabriela Walla, and Mariola Saulicz.
• Katedra Metod Specjalnych Fizjoterapii i Sportu Osób Niepełnosprawnych AWF Katowice. mysliwiec@o2.pl
• Wiad. Lek. 2011 Jan 1; 64 (3): 159-63.

IntroductionAccording to many authors, the access to public health service is obstructed for the intellectually handicapped people. To meet this argument Special Olympics created a program Healthy Sportsmen. This program relates to intellectually handicapped people all over the world and its aim is to diagnose selected clinical illnesses and create data bank of this social group. Additionally, it provides an opportunity for the 'young physicians' to improve their knowledge and skills in the area of practice with the handicapped.Material And MethodThe aim of the study was to answer the question: what is the parents' evaluation of the quality of the selected health services provided to children with different degree of intellectual handicap on the example of two voivodeships of southern Poland. 108 parents of intellectually disabled children took part in the study (51 women and 57 men): 71 respondents (66%) from the Silesian voivodeship and 37 (34%) from the Lesser Poland voivodeship. The study included the author's questionnaire in which 15 questions, concerning the opinions about selected medical services, were asked.ResultsIn the opinion of parents' of the intellectually handicapped the access to dental services was evaluated at the lowest level. The attitude of the society towards the people with mental handicap, support and help offers from the Health Service units and the accessibility of the secondary health care were evaluated at similarly low level. The services provided by the primary care physicians and physiotherapists were evaluated at the highest level.ConclusionsThere is a constant need to improve the methods of practice with the intellectually handicapped patients.

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