Background: At least half of children and adults with Down syndrome have a major mental health concern during their life but few studies ask people with Down syndrome directly about their experience. We used a co-research model to explore anxiety, stress, and coping in adults with Down syndrome. Methods: Our group of researchers and adults with…

Introduction: Children with Down Syndrome are more likely to experience sleep issues throughout their life compared to typically developing children. Sleep difficulties also affect caregivers, who are at increased risk of sleep disturbances, mood disturbances and poorer wellbeing. However, the impact of poor sleep in this cohort of children on…

Background: Breast cancer is as frequent in women with intellectual disabilities as the general population, but the mammography uptake rate for women with intellectual disabilities is almost a third lower. This meta-synthesis aimed to explore physical and psychosocial barriers to mammography access for women with intellectual disabilities from the…

Background: Staff supporting people with intellectual disabilities may experience work-related stress that adversely impacts their wellbeing and capacity to provide support. Acceptance and Commitment Training interventions like Promotion of Acceptance in Carers and Teachers (PACT) have been shown to be effective for reducing stress and promoting…

Introduction: The measures implemented to manage the COVID-19 pandemic have been shown to impair mental health. This problem is likely to be exacerbated for carers. Method: Informal carers (mainly parents) of children and adults with intellectual disabilities, and a comparison group of parents of children without disabilities, completed an online…

Background: The psychological status of caregivers of individuals with intellectual disability and psychiatric illness (PI) is important for effective management. The aim of this study was to examine the psychological status and its relationship with coping styles among these caregivers. Materials & Methods: Caregivers (N = 80) of individuals…

Background: Needle phobias are common in children and adults worldwide. One effective intervention for this phobia is exposure therapy where a participant is gradually exposed to increasing levels of the fear-evoking stimulus while differential reinforcement is applied. This intervention, however, may be difficult to implement with some medical…

Background: The predominant focus of extant literature exploring maternal experience of developmental disability has been stress, adaptation, efficacy of interventions and the burden of care. Most studies involve mothers of children, with scant attention given to what life is like later. This study qualitatively explores the experience of mothers…

Background: Previous research with mothers of children with intellectual disabilities has shown that psychological acceptance is related to maternal psychological well-being. The present research extended this line of enquiry to fathers and explored the potential for psychological acceptance to mediate the impact of children's behaviour problems…

Background: Previous research has identified various dimensions of social support that are positively associated with parental well-being. However, most research does not include multiple measures of social support and uses heterogeneous samples in terms of child characteristics such as age and severity of intellectual disability. Methods:…