Self‐appraised lifestyle satisfaction of persons with intellectual disability: the impact of personal characteristics and community residential facilities

Abstract

The present study addresses two goals: (a) to examine the impact of personal characteristics, behavioural characteristics, and living arrangement on participants’ self‐appraised lifestyle satisfaction (LS), and (b) to compare the level of LS across different settings and to try to answer the question of whether the living arrangement made a contribution to general LS independent of residents’ personal and behavioural characteristics. A total of 247 adults with intellectual disability, randomly selected from residents of group homes, semi‐independent and independent apartments in the community, participated in the study. Residents were interviewed about their LS. The instrument that was used is the lifestyle satisfaction scale (LSS). Residents’ personal and behavioural characteristics explained more of the variance of total LS than the living arrangement. Among the personal and behavioural variables, only need for mobility assistance and level of challenging behaviour predicted LS. Participants who did not need mobility assistance or had less problem behaviour expressed markedly higher lifestyle satisfaction. Living in a semi‐independent apartment made a significant and independent contribution to the total lifestyle satisfaction over and above the contribution made by personal and behavioural characteristics. However, participants who did not live in a semi‐independent apartment expressed more lifestyle satisfaction than those who did.