Annelies Overwijk Annette A. J. van der Putten Cees P. van der Schans Mariël Willems Thessa I. M. Hilgenkamp Aly Waninge
First published: 08 December 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/jar.12845
Source: Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities – Wiley Online Library
Abstract
Background
Behaviour change techniques (BCTs) can be employed to support a healthy lifestyle for people with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to determine whether and which BCTs are used by direct support professionals (DSPs) for supporting healthy lifestyle behaviour of people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities.
Method
Direct support professionals (n = 18) were observed in their daily work using audio‐visual recordings. To code BCTs, the Coventry Aberdeen London Refined (CALO‐RE‐NL) taxonomy was employed.
Results
Direct support professionals used 33 BCTs out of 42. The most used BCTs were as follows: ‘feedback on performance’, ‘instructions on how to perform the behaviour’, ‘doing together’, ‘rewards on successful behaviour’, ‘reward effort towards behaviour’, ‘DSP changes environment’, ‘graded tasks’, ‘prompt practice’ and ‘model/demonstrate behaviour’.
Conclusions
Although a variety of BCTs is used by DSPs in their support of people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities when facilitating healthy lifestyle behaviour, they rely on nine of them.
Funding informationThis study was funded by the Dutch organization for health research and development, ZonMw, in the program ‘Gewoon Bijzonder, Nationaal Programma Gehandicapten’ (grant number: 80‐84500‐98‐118) and the ‘Innovatie Werkplaats Active Ageing van mensen met VB’, a collaboration between the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Alfa‐college, and care provider organizations for people with intellectual disabilities.