Predicting health support behaviours in paid carers of people with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Ensuring the physical health of people with intellectual disabilities is often expected from those who are paid to care for this client group. Working environments influence peoples’ actual behaviours especially, if they involve regularly negotiating challenging daily chores as part of their job role e.g., caring for others. Utilising multiple regression, the current research focused on predicting health support behaviours in an opportunity sample (N= 60) of carers supporting people with intellectual disabilities working in various settings located in Gloucestershire, UK. Participants completed a measure of health support behaviours and bespoke measures derived from the theory of planned behaviour. Specifically, measures assessing direct and indirect attitudes, self-efficacy, perceived control, injunctive norms and intention. Results produced a marginally significant model p = .05); perceived control was the only (marginal) significant predictor (p = .06). These results suggest that perceived control is important in predicting health support behaviours in this occupational group. Results support extant research emphasising the importance of perceived control and suggest that working environments that facilitate perceived control would be beneficial for carers and evoke actual health support behaviours.