The effect of different types of employment on quality of life.
Open jobs lift quality of life above sheltered workshops, but only for adults with ID who already show strong everyday and work skills.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Saunders et al. (2005) asked adults with intellectual disability where they work and how they feel about life.
They compared two groups: people in open jobs in the community and people in sheltered workshops.
Each person filled out a quality-of-life survey and took a quick test of work skills.
What they found
Adults in open jobs rated their life higher than adults in sheltered workshops.
The boost only showed up for people who had strong daily-living and work skills.
People with fewer skills reported the same life quality in both job types.
How this fits with other research
Singh et al. (1991) and Pilowsky et al. (1998) saw the same pattern in housing: more integrated, community settings feel better than large, segregated ones.
Young (2006) later repeated the idea and still found community houses beat cluster centres.
Schmidt et al. (2010) and Spriggs et al. (2015) warn that staff often score QoL lower than the adults themselves, so self-report like the kind R used is the safer yard-stick.
Together the papers say "community beats facility" across work, home, and social life, but only when the person has the skills to use those settings.
Why it matters
When you write an employment goal, do not stop at "get a job." Check the client’s daily-living and work skills first. If scores are high, push for open employment; the data say life satisfaction will likely rise. If scores are low, add skill-building first so the client can cash in on the same QoL boost later.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Despite research that has investigated whether the financial benefits of open employment exceed the costs, there has been scant research as to the effect sheltered and open employment have upon the quality of life of participants. The importance of this research is threefold: it investigates outcomes explicitly in terms of quality of life; the sample size is comparatively large; and it uses an established and validated questionnaire. METHOD: One hundred and seventeen people with intellectual disability (ID) who were employed in either open or sheltered employment by disability employment agencies were interviewed. Quality of life was assessed using the Quality of Life Questionnaire. After making an initial assessment to see whether the outcomes achieved depended on type of employment, quality of life scores were analyzed controlling for participants' level of functional work ability (assessed via the Functional Assessment Inventory). RESULTS: The results showed that participants placed in open employment reported statistically significant higher quality of life scores. When the sample was split based upon participants' functional work ability, the type of employment had no effect on the reported quality of life for participants with a low functional work ability. However, for those participants with a high functional work ability, those in open employment reported statistically significantly higher quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study support the placement of people with ID with high functional work ability into open employment. However, a degree of caution needs to be taken in interpreting the results presented given the disparity in income levels between the two types of employment.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2005 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2005.00746.x