Psychological correlates of formal carers of people with intellectual disability: a Portuguese sample

Abstract

Aims: Daily work with people with mental disabilities is extremely demanding, both physically and psychologically. This study aims to characterize different workers of institutions that deliver care to people with intellectual disabilities regarding their stress vulnerability, personality type, coping strategies and psychopathological symptoms and explore associations between these variables and some sociodemographic and professionals variables. Methods: 68 professionals from institutions that work with people with mental disabilities, aged between 19 to 62 years (M = 36.3, SD = 11.65), answered a sociodemographic questionnaire, the 23-Stress Vulnerability Questionnaire (23-QVS), the Eysenck Personality Inventory-12 (EPI-12), the Brief Cope, and the Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI). Results: In this sample of workers, higher levels of stress vulnerability were associated with higher levels of neuroticism and of psychopathological symptoms. Women presented higher levels of somatization, younger professionals and with less education were more vulnerable to stress. Work overload was associated to stress vulnerability and to psychopathological symptoms. Conclusions: This study confirms that workers of institutions that receive people with intellectual disabilities present higher levels of stress vulnerability and higher risk of developing psychopathological symptoms. It is urgent to implement intervention measures (preventive and/or therapeutic) to relieve these professionals stress, improving their mental health. It seems that workers with higher levels of neuroticism might benefit more from these interventions.

Keywords

• Profissionais
• Deficiência mental
• Portugal
• Correlatos psicológicos
• Estudo de levantamento descritivo