To evaluate the quality of life of handicapped students integrated into the ordinary higher education system.

Over a seven-month period in the academic year 2000-2001, we performed a descriptive, cross-sectional, analytical survey of 203 handicapped students registered in universities and high schools in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The first part of the survey questionnaire concerned the students' social-demographic and clinical characteristics and the second part consisted of a quality of life assessment in terms of building and teaching accessibility and socioeconomic aspects. Quality of life was evaluated on a six-step scale, as per the life satisfaction questionnaire of Bränholm and Fugl-Meyer.

A number of the handicapped students (60.6%) received financial support from their families. Several students (89.2 and 10.8%) presented motor and sensory handicaps, respectively. A number of respondents (63.5%) considered that building accessibility was dissatisfactory. A number of the surveyed students (73.89%) were at university. Teaching accessibility was judged to be satisfactory by motor-handicapped subjects and dissatisfactory by sensory handicapped persons. A number of the surveyed students (26.6%) spent between 25 to 50% of their monthly income on handicap-related expenses and 19.7% of the survey population even spent more than 50% of their income in this respect. The surveyed students' considered their overall quality of life to be dissatisfactory.

Improving handicapped students' quality of life requires an appropriate legislative environment and adequate financial support in order to incite educational institutions to accept these students' needs and their specific characteristics.