Perspectives about support challenges facing health workers assisting older adults with and without intellectual disability in rural versus urban settings in Australia

ABSTRACT

Aims: Life expectancy for both sexes in Australia exceeds 80 years, with individuals with intellectual disability also increasingly living into older age. This research aimed to comparatively examine perceptions of staff supporting either older adults or age peers with lifelong intellectual disability.

Methods: This project asked 420 medical, health, and support workers about training adequacy, health services access, and trigger points for premature institutionalisation. This paper is based on a subsample of 196 respondents who provided quantitative and qualitative responses.

Results: There was considerable variation in confidence in supporting ageing individuals, while only 23.7% of doctors reported their training was adequate to support adults ageing with intellectual disability. A lack of services and poor carer health were identified as triggers for premature institutionalisation.

Conclusions: The study revealed key differences in staff perceptions of support provision and training adequacy when comparing ageing individuals with intellectual disability to the general ageing population.

KEYWORDS:

• Ageing
• rural
• intellectual disability
• comparative
• metropolitan
• health professional
• training

Acknowledgements

The information and views contained in this research are not intended as a statement of the Australian Government or any jurisdictional policy and do not necessarily, or at all, reflect the views held by the Australian Government or jurisdictional government departments. The authors would also like to acknowledge the support of a number of organisations and individuals who provided considerable logistic support in facilitating the survey component including Ms Meaghan Edwards, Ms Marie Parmenter, Ms Peta Ryan, Ms Miranda Cannon-Vanry, Ms Nicola Hayhoe, Dr Annie Mills, Ms Elizabeth Young, Ability Options, Carers Queensland, CareWest, Currajong Support Services, Endeavour Foundation, Greenacres Industries, Illawarra Retirement Trust, Martin House, MultiTask, South Cross Homes, The Ascent Group, Treetops House and Uniting Care Ageing NSW.

This project also benefitted from indirect support by the Collaborative Research Network for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Rural Communities, hosted at the University of New England and supported by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, Commonwealth Government of Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Rafat Hussain http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1295-4277

Matthew P. Janicki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1053-1748

Stuart Wark http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5366-1860

Additional information

Funding

This report is funded with assistance from a funding grant from the National Disability Policy and Research Working Group (DPRWG), offered under the National Disability Research and Development Agenda, jointly implemented by disability representatives from Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments.