Assessing the quality of support and discovering sources of resilience during COVID-19 measures in people with intellectual disabilities by professional carers.

The study asked only professional carers, not people with intellectual disabilities, so it cannot show what clients experienced or whether they rated contact quality and resilience the same way. The survey was distributed through social media and organization newsletters, and colleagues were asked to share it, so participants may not represent all carers or clients in the Netherlands. Most carers reported working with people with mild intellectual disabilities, 90.3%, so the findings may not apply to people with moderate, severe, or profound intellectual disabilities. The resilience analysis used 175 completed surveys, while the contact-quality analysis used 217 surveys, and 68 surveys were excluded for incomplete key answers, so the samples differ. Data were collected during the first Dutch lockdown only, and additional measures used by individual service providers were not accounted for.

The research was funded by MEE ZHN, a non-governmental organization for people with disabilities, and VCVGZ, a foundation that finances research promoting mental health care. No author conflicts of interest are reported.

Do not conclude that remote support caused worse communication outcomes for people with intellectual disabilities. The study only asked professional carers to rate contact quality and resilience sources before and during lockdown; it did not measure client outcomes or compare different support models.