What Constitutes Effective Support and Provision Within Day Service Centres for People With Intellectual Disabilities? A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research.
James Belsey, Rachel Harrison
PMID 42455489WHAT IT FOUND
People with intellectual disabilities and staff valued day services that offered communication, choice, relationship-building, varied activities and community contact.
These themes came from qualitative studies; the review did not test whether they improve outcomes.
Key findings
01Four themes emerged: perceptions of service quality, community orientation and empowerment, challenging behaviours and safety, and staff factors and job satisfaction.
02Day service quality was described as depending on communication, respectful choice, varied activities and community contact.
03Confidence was moderate for service quality and very low for the other three themes.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The review synthesised qualitative perceptions, not tested effects, so it cannot show that a service model improves outcomes. All included studies met the same five of the ten quality checklist points. Only 27 of 43 relevant findings were judged unequivocal; 13 were equivocal and 3 unsupported. Included studies came from only five countries, and terminology may differ across systems. People with intellectual disabilities were the sole participants in only three studies, while staff were the sole participants in eight. Mixed-methods studies were excluded, so relevant qualitative data from them may be missing.
Declared interests
The authors reported no funding to declare and no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these themes as proof that any day service model improves outcomes. The review synthesised qualitative perceptions, and confidence was very low for three of the four themes.