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Attachment style and mental health in adults with intellectual disability: self-reports and reports by carers
- Authors:
- LARSON Felicity V., ALIM Nadja, TSAKANIKOS Elias
- Journal article citation:
- Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, 5(3), 2011, pp.15-23.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
For this research, participants were recruited from organisations providing services for people with intellectual disabilities in East Anglia, London and South East England. The study aimed to investigate whether adults with mild/moderate intellectual disabilities could accurately self-report their attachment style, and to explore the association between attachment style, challenging behaviour and mental health problems. 60 adults with intellectual disabilities completed an adapted attachment style questionnaire. They were also asked to select a supporting person to complete a questionnaire about them. 39 supporters completed questionnaires, which also provided information about challenging behaviour. The article describes the study and its results. The researchers found that people with mild/moderate intellectual disabilities show the same range of attachment styles as the general population. Insecure attachment was significantly associated with a reported diagnosis of depression but not anxiety, and a link was found between insecure attachment and the presence of challenging behaviour (specifically refusal of medication), but attachment style was not linked to any other kind of challenging behaviour explored in the study. The authors discuss their findings and the implications.