Coping with Death and Bereavement: A Proactive Intervention Program for Adults with Intellectual Disability

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Like the broader population, people with intellectual disability (ID) experience the process of grief after loss of a loved one. However, there are a series of risk factors characteristic of this population that can hinder the development of adaptive grief, including cognitive and affective aspects. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief intervention program in people with ID to improve understanding of the concept of death, the grief processes, and adaptive attitudes.

Method

A mixed method design that included a controlled, randomized research design, was used. A total of 38 people with ID participated. The variables measured were: grief, biological and cognitive concept of death.

Results

The program significantly increased understanding in two dimensions of the concept of death, Inevitability and Universality, and demonstrated a greater understanding and healthier attitudes regarding death and grief.

Conclusions

It is recommended that, in future research studies, education on death be worked as early as possible in people with ID, in order to prevent future pathological grief.

KEYWORDS:

• Intellectual disability
• concept of death
• bereavement
• intervention program

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the professionals and the families of the VALE association for their participation in this research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author Contributions

María Inmaculada Fernández Ávalos: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing-Original draft preparation. Manuel Fernández Alcántara: Visualization, Supervision, Writing–review & editing. Francisco Cruz Quintana: Resources, Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Oliver Turnbull: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Rosario Isabel Ferrer Cascales: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. María Nieves Pérez Marfil: Data Curation, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.

Additional information

Funding

MIFA is funded by a FPU predoctoral research grant (Ref: UAFPU2018-026) from the University of Alicante, Spain.