Premium
Use of behaviour change techniques by direct support professionals to support healthy lifestyle behaviour for people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities
Author(s) -
Overwijk Annelies,
Putten Annette A. J.,
Schans Cees P.,
Willems Mariël,
Hilgenkamp Thessa I. M.,
Waninge Aly
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.056
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1468-3148
pISSN - 1360-2322
DOI - 10.1111/jar.12845
Subject(s) - intellectual disability , psychology , behaviour change , challenging behaviour , applied psychology , developmental psychology , psychological intervention , psychiatry
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.