Meaningful moments of interaction with people with profound intellectual disabilities: Reflections from direct support staff

Background High‐quality, affective relationships are built on meaningful moments of interaction, which are challenging for support staff to establish with people with profound intellectual disabilities. Therefore, we explored what makes a moment of interaction meaningful to support staff and what ci...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities 2022-11, Vol.35 (6), p.1307-1316
Main Authors: Penninga, Wieneke, Nijs, Sara L. P., Bakel, Hedwig J. A., Embregts, Petri J. C. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Caregivers
Context Effect
Emotions
Employees
Humans
Intellectual disabilities
Intellectual Disability - psychology
Interaction
Interpersonal Relationship
interpretative phenomenological analysis
meaningful interaction
meaningful relationship
Nurse patient relationships
Nursing assistants
profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
profound intellectual disability
Qualitative research
Severe Intellectual Disability
Support personnel
Value Judgment
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background High‐quality, affective relationships are built on meaningful moments of interaction, which are challenging for support staff to establish with people with profound intellectual disabilities. Therefore, we explored what makes a moment of interaction meaningful to support staff and what circumstances facilitate meaningful moments of interaction taking place. Method Five direct support staff took part in unstructured, in‐depth interviews. The interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Member checks were also conducted. Results Support staff experienced moments of interaction as meaningful because they felt a connection with a person with profound intellectual disabilities and/or they had the feeling of being meaningful for this person. Staff‐related and contextual circumstances facilitating meaningful moments of interaction to take place were described. Conclusions Meaningful moments of interaction are highly valued by support staff, who believe these moments are valued by persons with profound intellectual disabilities as well. Implications for daily practice are described.
ISSN:1360-2322
1468-3148
DOI:10.1111/jar.13019