Inclusive healthcare for people with intellectual disabilities: The impact of labelling and biomedical causal beliefs.
A quick biomedical explanation cuts healthcare staff’s social distance toward people with ID and helps them notice the disability.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lucassen et al. (2025) asked healthcare staff how labels and beliefs shape care for people with intellectual disability.
They ran a survey experiment. Staff read short stories about patients. Some stories said the patient had ID, some did not. Some added that ID has biomedical causes. Then staff answered questions about how close they felt to the patient and whether they spotted the disability.
What they found
When staff heard the ID label plus a biomedical cause, they felt less social distance. They were more willing to treat the person.
Yet only three in ten staff saw the disability when no label was given. The label plus cause story also made staff think biology was the main reason for the disability.
How this fits with other research
O'Connor et al. (2020) found the same label-help effect with adults with ASD in the workplace. Telling co-workers the diagnosis cut social distance. The two studies show the effect works across settings and diagnoses.
Cullinan et al. (2001) trained police officers about ID. After one class, officers held fewer eugenic views. Laurie’s team adds a twist: you may not need a full class. Just saying ID has biomedical roots can shift attitudes.
Mason (2007) showed that clinicians often overlook therapy for people with ID because they doubt their own skills. Laurie’s low recognition rate fits this pattern. If staff do not spot ID, they cannot tailor care.
Why it matters
You can use a ten-second script. When you hand over a client, say, “He has ID; it’s neurodevelopmental.” That tiny line cuts social distance and raises the odds that nurses or doctors will see his needs. No extra training budget needed.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: People with intellectual disabilities often face inequalities in healthcare, including a lack of sensitivity on the part of healthcare professionals who are less able to identify and recognise these people's health needs despite the desire to make healthcare accessible. AIMS: This study examined the links between variables related to intellectual disability literacy and variables related to stigma which may be related to healthcare professionals' sensitivity to the health needs of people with intellectual disabilities. METHOD AND PROCEDURE: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted with 163 healthcare professionals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the following vignettes, with two presentation conditions (labelled or unlabelled) and two gender conditions (male or female), and the participants were asked to complete an intellectual disability literacy scale (IDLS, Scior & Furnham, 2011). RESULTS: Only 31 % of healthcare professionals in the unlabelled condition recognise a neurodevelopmental disorder. Furthermore, the label predicts an attribution of biomedical causal beliefs and fewer environmental causal beliefs than the unlabelled condition. Moreover, the belief in a biomedical cause predicts a reduction in social distance. Finally, gender and label seem to affect social distance. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Healthcare professionals are not sufficiently aware of intellectual disability (i.e., recognition of symptoms, causes of the disorder). These findings seem all the more important given that our results indicate that attributing a biomedical cause to a person's situation helps reduce social distance, which is an essential element in caring for people. It therefore seems essential to promote practices aimed at improving access to inclusive healthcare.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2025.104969