The Nature of Stressors Reported by People with an Intellectual Disability

There has been little research on stress as perceived by people with an intellectual disability. This is somewhat surprising considering the changes in philosophy and service delivery models across the western world that have resulted in people with an intellectual disability being at the forefront of massive attitudinal shifts within society. In this study, administration of the Lifestress Inventory to 459 people with a mild or moderate intellectual disability revealed that people with a disability reported experiencing an average of 8.57 stressors from a list of 31 stressors. When the stress intensity ratings for the individual stressors were examined it was clear that most stressors bothered the participants ‘a fair bit’. People with an intellectual disability reported a lot of stress from negative interpersonal relationships with peers and others.