Awareness of Sexual Rights and Empowerment: Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation of a Sexual Health Intervention for Adults with Intellectual Disability

ABSTRACT

Young people with intellectual disability (ID) rarely have opportunities to form intimate relationships or receive long-term interventions promoting their sexual health and awareness of sexual rights. To promote sexual health in adults with ID in Taiwan, we utilized intervention research and inclusive research to introduce three interventions that involved adults with ID, their parents, and service workers. This paper primarily evaluates the outcomes of a two-year intervention to promote sexual and reproductive health knowledge/positive attitudes and quality of life for adults with ID. A non-equivalent multiple-groups with replications design was used to gather data from 87 adults with ID. In-depth interviews and focus groups were used to collect the experiences and perspectives of adults with ID, service workers and parents. Although the experimental groups did not show a strong quantitative increase in sexual knowledge and sexual attitudes, the qualitative data indicated that the dialogues with and among the participants transformed their perceptions of sexual needs from being sexual problems to being sexual rights, which was empowering for adults with ID. Involving parents and service workers in the intervention and facilitating dialogue between these groups are essential to transform sexual problems of adults with ID into sexual rights.

Acknowledgments

The project was funded by the National Science Council (Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan) (NSC100-2314-B-010-062). The authors would like to thank all those involved in this study including the participating adults with ID, the parents, the research assistant, the volunteers, and the service workers and managers of the service units. We are also grateful to three reviewers and Dr. Sharon Pugh for her help in editing the language of our manuscript. Special thanks to Professor Christy Pu (Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan) for her assistance in statistical analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Council (Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan) [NSC100-2314-B-010-062].