Use of behaviour change techniques by direct support professionals to support healthy lifestyle behaviour for people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities

Annelies Overwijk; Annette A J van der Putten; Cees P van der Schans; Mariël Willems; Thessa I M Hilgenkamp; Aly Waninge

doi:10.1111/jar.12845

Use of behaviour change techniques by direct support professionals to support healthy lifestyle behaviour for people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities

J Appl Res Intellect Disabil. 2021 Jul;34(4):1048-1056. doi: 10.1111/jar.12845. Epub 2020 Dec 8.

Authors

Annelies Overwijk^{1

2}, Annette A J van der Putten³, Cees P van der Schans^{1

2

4}, Mariël Willems¹, Thessa I M Hilgenkamp^{5

6}, Aly Waninge^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Research Group Healthy Ageing, Allied Health Care and Nursing, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands.
² Department of Health Psychology, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
³ Department of Inclusive and Special Needs Education, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
⁵ Department of General Practice, Intellectual Disability Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Centre Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Physical Therapy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA.

Abstract

Background: Behaviour change techniques (BCTs) can be employed to support a healthy lifestyle for people with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to determine whether and which BCTs are used by direct support professionals (DSPs) for supporting healthy lifestyle behaviour of people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities.

Method: Direct support professionals (n = 18) were observed in their daily work using audio-visual recordings. To code BCTs, the Coventry Aberdeen London Refined (CALO-RE-NL) taxonomy was employed.

Results: Direct support professionals used 33 BCTs out of 42. The most used BCTs were as follows: 'feedback on performance', 'instructions on how to perform the behaviour', 'doing together', 'rewards on successful behaviour', 'reward effort towards behaviour', 'DSP changes environment', 'graded tasks', 'prompt practice' and 'model/demonstrate behaviour'.

Conclusions: Although a variety of BCTs is used by DSPs in their support of people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities when facilitating healthy lifestyle behaviour, they rely on nine of them.

Keywords: behaviour change techniques; direct support professionals; lifestyle behaviour; moderate to profound intellectual disabilities.

MeSH terms

Behavior Therapy
Health Promotion*
Healthy Lifestyle*
Humans
Intellectual Disability*
London

Abstract

MeSH terms

Grants and funding