De uitvoering van slaapadviezen en begeleiderfactoren die hiermee samenhangen in de verstandelijk gehandicaptenzorg

Abstract

Background: Sleep is important for daily functioning of people. A low quality of sleep can negatively impact cognitive functioning and behavior. Intellectually disabled regularly have sleeping problems (fragmented sleep and long sleep onset latency). Sherpa, a care facility for people with intellectual disabilities gives carers recommendations to improve their clients’ quality of sleep. However, Sherpa suspects that not all recommendations are actually carried out. According to the self-determination theory, feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness stimulate employee’s motivation for certain actions. The Iceberg model states that, besides knowledge, vision also effects behaviors. Aim: Present study investigated the extent to which recommendations to improve the quality of sleep are implemented and which characteristics of carers (demographic characteristics, vision, knowledge and constructs of the self-determination theory) are related. Method: A questionnaire was drawn up for this study and was completed by 68 carers working with people with either profound ID or seniors. Results: The majority of the recommendations was executed, but significantly more by carers of people with profound ID. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation between knowledge of sleep recommendations and feelings of relatedness and the implementation of recommendations was found. Correlations between feelings of autonomy and knowledge of the sleep protocol and the implementation of recommendations were significant and negative. Discussion: These findings suggest that Sherpa should involve carers in the process of describing recommendations, increase the knowledge of sleep and foster cooperations with diverse disciplines to (further) increase the implementation of recommendations.