Researchers from the University of Kent, University of Warwick, University of Birmingham, and Swansea University, in collaboration with the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, have conducted an online study to document the mental health of informal carers of children and adults with intellectual disability during the coronavirus lockdown.
The study, ‘Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of carers of people with intellectual disabilities’, found that approximately half of carers for adults and children with an intellectual disability reported feeling major depression and severe anxiety during lockdown; far more than in families with no intellectual disabilities.
The levels of reported depression and anxiety were significantly higher than those found in pre-lockdown studies and at the same time carers experienced lower levels of social support relative to parents of children without intellectual disability.
The data for the study were collected in the second half of the strict March-April-June coronavirus lockdown. Researchers analysed 244 online surveys, completed by carers of adults with intellectual disability, children with intellectual disability, and a comparison group of carers for children without intellectual disability. More than 90 per cent of the carers taking part were female.
The report also found that for those caring for adults with an intellectual disability, the closure of adult day services and respite care meant that carers of adults felt they had received significantly less support than carers of children, who were still able to choose to send their children to school.
Suggestions put forward in the report to better support carers included:
- Long term consistent support for carers from a named key worker
- More nurses trained in learning disabilities issues, and encouraged to regard carers’ mental health as part of their remit
- More respite provision, and a policy commitment to maintain access to respite through any future lockdowns
- Professional services better equipped to offer support to carers remotely via phone or electronic media
- Access for carers to specialist mental health support
- Provision of peer support groups for carers
Professor Glynis Murphy, one of the authors of the study, from Kent’s Tizard Centre, in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, said: “It is likely from these data that the mental health of carers of children and adults with intellectual disability has been adversely affected by the pandemic over and above any pre-existing mental health problems. Carers of adults and children with intellectual disability were five times more likely to report severe anxiety and between four and ten times more likely to report major depression than parents of children without intellectual disability.”
The paper ‘Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of carers of people with intellectual disabilities’ was published in the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities.