Loneliness in young adults with a visual impairment:Links with perceived social support in a twenty-year longitudinal study

Background: Young people with disabilities are more at risk of experiencing loneliness in later life than their typically developing peers. Aim: To identify those who become lonely in later life, trajectories of perceived parent and peer support from adolescence to adulthood of young people with a visual impairment were studied. Methods: A total of 316 adolescents (M = 18 years; SD = 6.5) enrolled in a cohort study in 1996; 205 of them participated in 2005, 178 in 2010, and 161 in 2016. Latent growth curve models were fitted to the data. Results: Perceived parent support followed a linear decreasing course. No association was found between perceived parent support and loneliness in later life. For perceived peer support a quadratic growth pattern was found, with an increase in peer support up to age 27, and thereafter a decrease. Both the initial level and the rate of change in perceived peer support significantly predicted loneliness in adulthood. Conclusions: The course of peer support is a better indicator for the risk of loneliness in later life than support from parents. Normative life transitions may affect the already vulnerable social support for young people with a visual impairment. This study highlights the importance of establishing and maintaining peer relationships throughout life

Bibliometric mapping of psychological well-being among children with a visual impairment

Children with a visual impairment experience lower psychological well-being than normative populations. While research on this subject is abundant, an overview is lacking of the methods used and topics commonly studied, to guide future research. The aim was to provide a visual overview of common topics included in psychological well-being research from 2000 to 2018 among children with a visual impairment. We created a bibliometric map with the VOSviewer programme using the text mining functionality to construct and visualise co-occurrences of relevant terms from the titles and abstracts in the included literature. The results show that common subjective terms are behaviour, relationships, attachment and parenting, cerebral visual impairment, cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder, and intellectual disability. The common methodological terms include literature and randomized control trials, with the latter restricted to specific terms such as parenting. The conclusions and implications are that the results give insight into the subject terms studied in past years and provide a roadmap for future research in the fields of visual impairment and psychological well-being of children. The topics needing more research are rare disorders, siblings, assistive technology, romantic relationships, bullying, and the frequent cooccurrences of visual impairment with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disability

Job satisfaction of people with intellectual disability: Associations with job characteristics and personality

To obtain an understanding of factors associated with job satisfaction of people with intellectual disability (ID), this study investigates the associations of job satisfaction with job characteristics (i.e., job demands, job resources) and personality, using the job demands-resources model. Data were gathered from 117 people and their employment support workers, using structured questionnaires adapted from well-established instruments. Job resources and age were positively associated with job satisfaction. Job demands and personality showed no significant direct associations with job satisfaction. Moderation analyses showed that for people with ID with high conscientiousness, enhanced job demands were associated with reduced job satisfaction, which was not the case for those with low conscientiousness. This study emphasizes the importance of job design

Job satisfaction of people with intellectual disabilities: the role of basic psychological need fulfillment and workplace participation

Purpose: Knowledge on what contributes to job satisfaction of people with intellectual disabilities is limited. Using self-determination theory, we investigated whether fulfillment of basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, relatedness, competence) affected job satisfaction, and explored associations between workplace participation, need fulfillment and job satisfaction. Method: A total of 117 persons with intellectual disabilities, recruited from a Dutch care organization, were interviewed on need fulfillment at work and job satisfaction. Data on workplace participation was obtained from staff. Questionnaires were based on well-established instruments. Results: Basic psychological need fulfillment predicted higher levels of job satisfaction. Level of workplace participation was not associated with need fulfillment or job satisfaction. Conclusions: Allowing workers with intellectual disabilities to act with a sense of volition, feel effective, able to meet challenges, and connected to others is essential and contributes to job satisfaction. It is needed to pay attention to this, both in selection and design of workplaces and in support style.Implications for rehabilitation Knowledge on factors that contribute to job satisfaction is necessary to improve employment situations and employment success of people with intellectual disabilities. In order to achieve job satisfaction, it is essential that workplaces allow for fulfillment of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence of people with intellectual disabilities. People with intellectual disabilities are able to report on their needs and satisfaction, and it is important that their own perspective is taken into account in decisions regarding their employment situation

Basic psychological need satisfaction of adolescents with a visual impairment: Effectiveness of a community-based mentoring program

Introduction: Psychosocial functioning of adolescents with a visual impairment can be negatively impacted due to vision related challenges experienced during the performance of daily living activities and participation in social activities. Within this randomized controlled trail, with a care-as-usual control group and two intervention-groups, the effectiveness of a mentoring program was investigated on improving psychosocial functioning of youth with a visual impairment. In addition, the potential positive effect of match similarity on the effectiveness of the program was tested by randomly assigning mentees to either a mentor with or without a visual impairment. Methods: A total of 76 adolescents (M age = 18 years, SD = 2.0, ranged between 15 and 22 years) and 36 mentors (M age = 30 years, SD = 5.9, ranged between 22 and 43 years), participated in the study. Baseline, post-test, and follow-up measurements were fitted to a multilevel growth model. Psychosocial functioning was assessed by measures of the three basic psychological needs (Chen et al., 2015), wellbeing, acceptance of the impairment, self-esteem, and loneliness. Results: Results showed that mentoring significantly improved autonomy satisfaction (B = 0.15, S.E. = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.003, 0.31, d. = .44) and competence satisfaction (B = 0.19, S.E. = 0.08, 95% CI = 0.02, 0.34, d. = .55). Mentoring had no effect on changes in relatedness satisfaction, wellbeing, acceptance of the impairment, self-esteem, and loneliness compared to the care-as-usual control group. No significant differences were found between mentees matched to mentors with or without a visual impairment for all outcomes. Conclusion: Mentoring appears a promising intervention to improve satisfaction with the basic psychological needs for autonomy and competence satisfaction among young people with a visual disability. However, the unexpected absence of effects on concomitant outcomes like relatedness satisfaction, wellbeing, acceptance of the impairment, self-esteem, and loneliness warrant caution regarding the potential for mentoring to support an adaptive transition to adulthood. The pattern of results also raises questions regarding the role of basic psychological need satisfaction as a mechanism for change in psychosocial functioning

Intra- and Interpersonal Factors in Adolescence Predicting Loneliness among Young Adults with Visual Impairments

Introduction: Youths with visual impairments (i.e., blindness or low vision) experience difficulties with forming and maintaining social relationships with peers. These difficulties challenge their psychosocial functioning and put them at risk of being lonelier later in life. The study’s primary goal was to investigate how intra- and interpersonal factors during adolescence influence Loneliness in young adulthood. Methods: Analyses were conducted on data from a national data set. Participants (N = 96) were interviewed at two different time points. General linear regression and mediation analyses were used to examine the role of social competence, personality, and satisfaction with social support, measured at mean age 17.83, and on Loneliness measured at mean age 23.45. Results: Analyses showed that adolescents with visual impairments who were more emotionally stable and had higher social competence during adolescence were less lonely later in life. In addition, the results showed that emotionally unstable adolescents reported lower social competence and, therefore, were lonelier in young adulthood. Discussion: These findings indicate that factors connected to Loneliness in young adulthood include people’s personality traits and their level of social competence at a younger age. Implications for practitioners: Knowing the underlying causes of an individual’s Loneliness assists practitioners in selecting what type of intervention would be suitable for addressing these issues. Those with low social skills benefit more from social skills training and those with negative biases of their own functioning profit more from interventions based on cognitive approaches. Screening methods could be used in order to determine these underlying issues and personality structure, before assigning persons to specific interventions

Basic psychological need satisfaction of adolescents with a visual impairment:Effectiveness of a community-based mentoring program

Introduction: Psychosocial functioning of adolescents with a visual impairment can be negatively impacted due to vision related challenges experienced during the performance of daily living activities and participation in social activities. Within this randomized controlled trail, with a care-as-usual control group and two intervention-groups, the effectiveness of a mentoring program was investigated on improving psychosocial functioning of youth with a visual impairment. In addition, the potential positive effect of match similarity on the effectiveness of the program was tested by randomly assigning mentees to either a mentor with or without a visual impairment. Methods: A total of 76 adolescents (M age = 18 years, SD = 2.0, ranged between 15 and 22 years) and 36 mentors (M age = 30 years, SD = 5.9, ranged between 22 and 43 years), participated in the study. Baseline, post-test, and follow-up measurements were fitted to a multilevel growth model. Psychosocial functioning was assessed by measures of the three basic psychological needs (Chen et al., 2015), wellbeing, acceptance of the impairment, self-esteem, and loneliness. Results: Results showed that mentoring significantly improved autonomy satisfaction (B = 0.15, S.E. = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.003, 0.31, d. = .44) and competence satisfaction (B = 0.19, S.E. = 0.08, 95% CI = 0.02, 0.34, d. = .55). Mentoring had no effect on changes in relatedness satisfaction, wellbeing, acceptance of the impairment, self-esteem, and loneliness compared to the care-as-usual control group. No significant differences were found between mentees matched to mentors with or without a visual impairment for all outcomes. Conclusion: Mentoring appears a promising intervention to improve satisfaction with the basic psychological needs for autonomy and competence satisfaction among young people with a visual disability. However, the unexpected absence of effects on concomitant outcomes like relatedness satisfaction, wellbeing, acceptance of the impairment, self-esteem, and loneliness warrant caution regarding the potential for mentoring to support an adaptive transition to adulthood. The pattern of results also raises questions regarding the role of basic psychological need satisfaction as a mechanism for change in psychosocial functioning