Author(s): Mary Hayes
Department: Psychology Department, Brothers of Charity Services, Bawnmore, Limerick
Keywords: Experience, ageing, women, intellectual disability.
(29 Jul 2009)
Aim: The main aim of the present study was to explore and compare the
experience of ageing in women with an intellectual disability and women
without an intellectual disability in elation to different aspects of
quality of life in an Irish context.
Method: A purposive sampling procedure was recruited through one ID
service to select ten women with an intellectual disability and through
the ICA for ten women without ID. The mean age of the women with ID was
54.7 years (range 52 to 60 years) and the mean age of the women without
ID was 58.3 (range 53 to 67). A total of twenty women completed the
structured interview protocol devised by Walsh and LeRoy (2004). The
structured Interview Protocol consisted of 103 questions, divided into
five sections. These sections covered personal demographics, economic
and personal safety nets, health, social roles and well-being.
Results: Data analysis was two-fold and consisted of both a qualitative
and a quantitative analysis. The “Flow Model” of data analysis (Miles
& Huberman, 1994) was used for analysis of the qualitative
variables and descriptive statistics were calculated for the
quantitative variables. Findings indicated that many of the experiences
of women who were ageing with ID differed from those of women without
ID. Some of the differences in these experiences were statistically
significant.
Conclusion: In general, experiences of women who are ageing with ID are
different to those of women who are ageing without ID in relation to
different aspects of quality of life. These findings need to be
explored on an individual basis in relation to the different aspects of
the quality of life and future research in this area should adopt the
principles emancipatory research.