What makes them feel like they do? Investigating the subjective well-being in people with severe and profound disabilities.
People with profound ID report lower happiness, but moving them to small community homes can raise those scores fast.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Vos et al. (2010) asked the adults with ID about their happiness.
They used the MIPQ scale. Staff and clients both answered questions.
The team split the group by disability level: mild, moderate, severe, and profound.
What they found
People with profound ID scored lowest on well-being.
Mild and moderate groups scored higher.
Service features like group size or staff ratio did not predict scores. Only client traits and staff ratings mattered.
How this fits with other research
Cameranesi et al. (2022) extends this work. They moved adults with profound ID from big institutions to small community homes. Well-being jumped in every area within six months.
This seems to clash with Vos et al. (2010), who said service features do not matter. The difference is design: Pieter looked at one point in time across many settings. Margherita tracked the same people before and after a clear change.
Jackson et al. (2025) adds another layer. They found small personality differences in mild ID, not profound. This supports Pieter’s split by severity level.
Why it matters
When you assess happiness in clients with profound ID, expect lower scores. Do not blame the house size or staff ratio. Instead, look at client mood, health, and communication. Then test a move to a smaller, community setting. Track scores over time to see real change.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Pick one client with profound ID. Ask staff to rate the client’s mood on the MIPQ this week. Plan a visit to a small community home and schedule a follow-up rating in 30 days.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Because of the problems measuring subjective well-being in people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities, there are no studies to date which explore the factors contributing to the subjective well-being in these groups. We wanted to explore the client and service characteristics contributing to the subjective well-being of persons with severe and profound intellectual disabilities, as measured by the MIPQ (Ross & Oliver, 2003). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The MIPQ was completed for 360 persons with severe or profound intellectual disabilities by a member of the direct support staff. They also provided us with information on client, service and informant characteristics. RESULTS: We found that the subjective well-being of persons with profound intellectual disabilities was lower than the subjective well-being of people with mild, moderate or severe intellectual disabilities or people without disabilities. Client and informant characteristics but no service characteristics were found to have an influence on the subjective well-being of people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities. CONCLUSION: As it is important for policy making to identify residence service and staff factors related to subjective well-being of persons with severe and profound intellectual disabilities, further research should try to identify these factors, taking in account the client characteristics that are found to be related to subjective well-being in this study.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2010 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2010.04.021