1. Genevieve Young-Southward1 Christopher Philo2 Sally-Ann Cooper3
What is the impact of transition on health and wellbeing in young people with intellectual disabilities?
A systematic review
Genevieve Young-Southward1 Christopher Philo2 Sally-Ann Cooper3
1Institute of Health and Wellbeing 2School of Geographical and Earth Sciences 3Institute of Health and Wellbeing
University of Glasgow
Methods
Inclusion criteria:
Age of participants was between 13 and 24 years old
Data for participants with intellectual disability was reported separately from those without intellectual disability
Both transition and health were discussed
Article was written in English
6 databases were searched using key search terms
Grey literature and reference lists were hand searched
A sample of titles and abstracts were screened by a second reviewer to check agreement
Transition – the move from childhood to adulthood – is an important stage in life for all young people
Transition may impact health and wellbeing in a number of different ways
Transition may be experienced differently by young people with intellectual disabilities
Database search Titles read n = 15,985
Excluded n – 15,446
Duplicate n = 165
Clearly not relevant
n = 15,281
Abstracts read n = 539
Excluded n = 466 Wrong age group n = 54 ID participants not reported separately n = 64
Not discussing both transition and health n = 333
Not English language n = 15
Results
Papers read in full
n = 73
15,985 articles were initially extracted, of which 17 met the inclusion criteria (Figure 1)
The results of the articles were mixed and in places contradictory, indicating that, while there are numerous health and wellbeing issues present in this population during transition, including obesity, sexual health and social conflict, the majority of parents of children with intellectual disabilities rate their child’s quality of life during this period positively
Identified from
Additional searches
n = 19
+ 1 published dataset
Excluded n = 59
Wrong age group n = 8
ID participants not reported separately n = 23
Not discussing both transition and health n = 28
Excluded n = 17
Wrong age group n = 2
ID participants not
reported separately n = 6
Not discussing both transition and health n = 9
Final inclusion
n = 17
Conclusions
Figure 1: Inclusion and exclusion of articles
The studies in this review reveal a mixed picture of health and wellbeing outcomes for young people with intellectual disabilities during transition
More research in this area, including secondary analysis of existing data, combined with qualitative exploration of young people’s transition experiences, is needed
Limitations
Studies that were not in English were excluded
We have no reason to think that there would have been publication bias in the topic reviewed
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