The influence of environment, predisposing, enabling and need variables on personal health choices of adults with intellectual disability

Abstract

Attention to disease and risk factor\rmanagement is increasingly a feature of people with intellectual disability (ID)\ras an augmented life expectancy also exposes a growing number of age-related\rdiseases. An additional concern is little attention to date to physical\ractivity, nutrition, access to social support and other personal health choices\rand to environmental issues such as the impact of access to social support and\rthe implications of individual’s living arrangements. Method: Using a\rsample of 753 persons with ID from the intellectual disability supplement to\rthe Irish longitudinal study on ageing (IDS-TILDA), forty three variables were\rgrouped into environmental, predisposing, enabling, need and personal health\rchoices clusters and hierarchical ordinary least squares regression examined\rthe contribution of environmental, enabling, predisposing, need and all combinations of the sets of variables to personal health choices. Findings: Almost 32% of variance was explained primarily by need variables. Most significant\rrelationships were with meeting up with family and friends (environmental),\rage, rating of health and worries about getting older (predisposing), having\rpublic health insurance and nursing who come into the home (enabling) and\rpresence of stroke, chronic constipation, functional limitations, high assistance\rneeds with activities of daily living (need). Discussion: Taken\rtogether, the groupings of variables from the Anderson Model explained a modest\ramount of variance in the pursuit of positive personal health choices by\rpeople with ID. More work is clearly needed in developing evidence-based interventions\rand strategies, and in understanding the relationship between positive personal\rhealth choices of people with ID and health outcomes.