Quality of life of workers with an intellectual disability in supported employment

Abstract

[EN]This study investigates what characteristics of supported employment may increase quality of life and if quality of life is higher in supported employment workers than in sheltered employment workers in Spain. Typicalnness, the degree to which the characteristics of a job are to the same as those of coworkers without a disability in the same company was considered as one of supported employment characteristics in the analysis.Method: Two groups were put together to obtain the data using two questionnaires that were administered by trained professionals. Correlational analysis of the data and MANOVA were also employed.Results: No differences were found between the two groups regarding quality of life, but results indicate that in supported employment high levels of typicalness are associated whit a higher quality of life, and that the handling of certain characteristics of suppot and the job, for example the hours of direct external support are related to enhancing the quality of life of the workers.Conclusions: Workers in supported employment show the same quality of life workers in sheltered employment centers.In Spain the greater the typicalness of the employment higher the quality of life. The implications of this for the amount of direct external support for workers with disability is that such support should be used only as absolutely necessary the minimum suppot necessary needed to encourage development.