The relationship between quality of life and self-determination: an international study.
Higher self-determination predicts better quality of life in adults with mild ID across cultures.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wong et al. (2005) asked 182 adults with mild intellectual disability to fill out two short surveys. One measured self-determination—how much they felt in charge of their own life. The other measured quality of life—how happy they felt in areas like friends, home, and work.
The adults lived in four different countries: the United States, Ireland, Italy, and Switzerland. The team used numbers to see if higher self-determination went hand-in-hand with higher quality of life.
What they found
People who scored high on self-determination were also the ones who landed in the high quality-of-life group. The link stayed strong across all four countries.
In plain words, when adults with mild ID feel they make their own choices, they also report feeling happier and more satisfied.
How this fits with other research
Xu et al. (2022) later showed the same self-determination scale works for kids in China. They found no average difference between students with and without ID, but the scores spread out more in the ID group. This extends Wong et al. (2005) downward in age and eastward in culture.
Heinicke et al. (2012) looked back at seven older reviews and warned that self-management programs for adults with ID had “lost momentum.” Their narrative sits beside Wong et al. (2005) like a call to action: we know self-determination matters, yet we rarely teach it.
Lau et al. (2023) pulled 24 studies and saw low self-esteem and depression often travel together in adults with ID. That review seems to clash with Wong et al. (2005) because both cannot be true if self-determination always lifts mood. The gap is method: the 2005 paper measured life satisfaction, while the 2023 review counted clinical depression. Feeling in control helps happiness, but it is not a cure for mood disorders.
Why it matters
You can add a self-determination scale to your intake packet. If scores are low, write goals that give real choices—pick work tasks, choose leisure activities, or select the order of daily routines. Small choice opportunities may boost happiness without extra cost or staff time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between self-determination and quality of life (QOL) of persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) living in four countries (Canada, United States, Belgium and France). METHOD: Participants were 182 adults with mild ID living in community settings (with families, living independently or in supported living environments). QOL was measured with the Quality of Life Questionnaire. Self-determination was measured using the Adult version of The Arc's Self-Determination Scale. Discriminant function and correlational analyses were conducted. RESULTS: Discriminant function analysis indicated that essential characteristics of self-determination predicted membership in the high QOL group and that overall self-determination and QOL were significantly correlated, as were sub-scale scores. CONCLUSIONS: The study replicates findings from a previous study with an international sample and confirms the importance of self-determination to enhance QOL. Subsequent research should examine the direction of the relationship between self-determination and QOL and examine the relationship of essential characteristics of self-determined behaviour and core domains of QOL in greater detail.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2005 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2005.00743.x