Promoting the health of people with intellectual disabilities: Preliminary results of a randomized controlled trial

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) experience significant disparities in health status and access to health promotion opportunities in comparison to the general population. Healthy Lifestyles (HL), a 3-day workshop with six months of follow-up meetings, is an effective health promotion intervention for adults with varying types of disabilities. This presentation will discuss preliminary results of an ongoing randomized controlled trial of HL for adults with ID. Measurements are completed for all participants to assess current health knowledge and behaviors, self-efficacy, readiness for change, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and body mass index (BMI) at four time points: baseline, one month after the workshop, at the end of the full intervention, and six months post-intervention. It is hypothesized that intervention group members will demonstrate increased knowledge, self-efficacy, and progression through stages of change across the study period. These changes are further expected to lead to increased adoption of healthy behaviors over time and, in turn, improved HRQOL and reduced BMI. Preliminary data from two cohorts (n = 43) indicate that intervention group members were less ready to change behaviors but otherwise did not differ significantly from the control group at baseline. Following participation in the workshop, intervention group members no longer lagged in stage of change and scored significantly higher than control group members on overall self-efficacy, exercise self-efficacy, and nutrition self-efficacy. If the theorized relationship between self-efficacy and subsequent health behaviors holds, initial findings suggest HL is an efficacious health promotion intervention for adults with ID.