Perceptions of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities about COVID-19 in Spain: a cross-sectional study.
Spanish adults with IDD told us lockdown wrecked mood and daily roles, echoing parent and staff stress seen across Europe.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Spain how COVID-19 lockdown felt to them.
They used a short survey. Some people answered alone. Others had family help.
What they found
Six in ten said their mood and energy got worse.
Almost half of students and workers lost their daily class or job.
Younger people and those who needed help filling out the form got the least information and support.
How this fits with other research
Polónyiová et al. (2022) looked at Slovak families one year later. They also saw rising stress, but they asked parents instead of the disabled person. The two studies line up: lockdown hurt both the person and the family.
Shawler et al. (2021) found that parents who keep social ties feel better. M et al. show why that matters: when day programs stop, parents must fill the gap, so their own wellness work protects the whole home.
Sheppard-Jones et al. (2022) showed direct-support staff felt burned out. Taken together, the three papers map a chain: closed programs stress staff, staff serve clients, clients lean on parents—every link weakens.
Why it matters
Your clients lost routines that kept them stable. Re-opening is not enough. Check if they still feel anxious, not just if they attend. Add visual daily schedules, choice boards, and peer Zoom hangouts. These cheap tools restore control and may cut problem behavior before it starts.
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Ask each client to rate their mood with a color card, then co-write a mini-schedule for the week that puts back one preferred pre-COVID activity.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: As the world battles COVID-19, there is a need to study the perceptions of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) about the effects of the pandemic and associated lockdown on their lives. This work explores the perceptions of Spaniards with IDD during the lockdown with respect to four topics: access to information, emotional experiences, effects on living conditions and access to support. METHODS: The topics were explored using a subset of 16 closed-ended questions from an online survey. In total, 582 participants with IDD completed the survey. The frequencies and percentages of responses to the questions were calculated, and chi-square tests performed to explore the relationship between participants' sociodemographic characteristics and responses. Given that people differed in the way in which they completed the survey, the relationship between participants' responses and completion method was also analysed. RESULTS: Participants reported that the pandemic and subsequent lockdown have had a deleterious effect on their emotional well-being (around 60.0% of participants) and occupations (48.0% of students and 72.7% of workers). Although access to information and support was reportedly good overall, being under the age of 21 years and studying were associated with perceptions reflecting poorer access to information (V = .20 and V = .13, respectively) and well-being support (V = .15 and V = .13, respectively). Being supported by a third party to complete the survey was consistently related to perceptions of worse outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The study yielded data on the perceptions of people with IDD regarding the effects that COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown have had on their lives. Suggestions on how to overcome the difficulties reported and future lines of research are discussed.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2021 · doi:10.1111/jir.12821