Further examination of relationships between life events and psychiatric symptoms in adults with intellectual disability.
Life-event checklists give only small predictive power for psychiatric symptoms and work differently across ID sub-groups.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Dagnan et al. (2005) asked the adults with intellectual disability about stressful life events. They used a 25-item checklist covering moves, deaths, illness, and abuse. Then they scored each person on the PAS-ADD psychiatric screen to see if more events meant more symptoms.
What they found
Life events predicted symptoms, but the link was weak. The effect size was only 0.12, meaning events explain about a large share of symptom differences. The link was even weaker for people with severe or profound ID and for those with Down syndrome.
How this fits with other research
Kittler et al. (2004) found a much stronger link one year earlier. Their odds ratio of 2.23 means adults with ≥1 event had double the risk of affective disorder. The difference: P et al. used a simple yes/no event count, while D et al. weighted events and split by ID level.
Kirby et al. (2024) followed kids with mild ID into adulthood. They show a large share later have any psychiatric diagnosis, proving symptoms persist long after events fade. Life-event checklists alone miss this lifelong risk.
Horovitz et al. (2014) add that each extra Axis I diagnosis lowers quality of life. So weak event-symptom links do not mean “no impact”; they mean you must also screen for cumulative disorders.
Why it matters
Do not trust a clean life-events list to rule out psychiatric risk. For clients with severe ID or Down syndrome, the checklist is even less helpful. Add structured psychiatric screens like PAS-ADD every six months, and track sensory loss (S, 2001) and side-effects (L et al., 2010) that can mimic or worsen symptoms.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: It has been proposed that people with intellectual disability (ID) might be similar to the general population in the way they respond to significant life events. Some preliminary findings have demonstrated that adults with ID who have experienced recent life events have an increased probability of having psychiatric problems. The aims of the present study were to determine whether previous findings can be replicated, and to examine the influence of additional diagnoses associated with ID on the strength of relationships between life event frequency and psychiatric problems. METHODS: Adults with ID (n = 624), living either in staffed community accommodation or in family or foster homes, were assessed on the Developmental Behaviour Checklist for Adults (DBC-A) and a 37-item life events checklist. Carers who knew the person well acted as proxy informants. RESULTS: People living in staffed accommodation experienced more life events than people living with natural or foster families. Life event frequency predicted DBC-A total score, five of six sub-scale scores, and caseness status, after significant demographic factors were taken into account. However, the strength of correlations between life event frequency and DBC-A total score varied among sub-groups identified by type of developmental disability and level of ID. CONCLUSIONS: Weak but significant associations between emotional and behavioural problems and life events experienced by adults with ID were demonstrated, but it was also shown that the strength of such associations varies among sub-groups of this heterogeneous population. Future research needs to take account of the circumstances surrounding the life changes, the period of time over which changes might have taken place, and the meaning that the person might attach to the changes. Research into the causal relationship between exposure to life events and the onset of psychiatric problems is also warranted.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2005 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2005.00761.x