What is it about?
Repeated interviews with 13 persons with intellectual disability in Sweden was analysed to find out their experiences and reflections upon support in everyday life. The findings included an overarching theme “Persons with intellectual disability request two different forms of support” and three subthemes: “Support requested to achieve independence”, “Challenges in requesting support”, and “Mutual support in a safe environment”. The findings showed that asking for support can be complicated. A lot of time and energy was spent to express their need for support in a way that was most beneficial to themselves and to those providing support.
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Why is it important?
The attitude of the support person was crucial for giving possibility to the persons with intellectual disability to express their need of support, and provide it in a way they want and that was acceptable to the person. As a person expressed it "That you decide for yourself when you want help and when you don’t want help. That you decide this for yourself, so that nobody else decides it for you".
Perspectives
Creating a trustful atmosphere and a respectful attitude is crucial for the person to request the support they truly need. This quote illustrate the complexity in requesting support: "Sometimes I tell them, sometimes I’m afraid to tell them because I don’t want to take up too much space. I’m afraid of interrupting someone nearby, like a member of staff who’s helping someone else, and then I’m usually the one who sits quietly. And then I’m usually afraid to say that I need help".
Ann-Marie Öhrvall
Karolinska Institutet
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Complex Matter of Requesting Support—Experiences of Persons with Intellectual Disability, Disabilities, May 2025, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/disabilities5020050.
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