Quality of life in the families of young people with intellectual disabilities

This paper reports on an investigation into quality of life in the families of young people with intellectual disabilities. Quality of life is an emerging area of research in nursing, therefore some of the theoretical issues in definition and measurement of quality of life are discussed. These issues include objective and subjective dimensions, and the neglected issue of the importance of these dimensions. Families with a member with an intellectual disability were found to have lower objective and subjective quality of life scores but were no different from the control group on the importance dimension. This finding implies that they have similar aspirations to other families but are unable to satisfy these aspirations. Implications of the findings of the study for policy makers and service delivery agencies are discussed.