The Effect of Educational Intervention on the Caring Attitude of Caregivers in Residential Rehabilitation Centers Towards people with intellectual disabilities

Designing appropriate interventions to improve the favorable care attitude can have a great effect on improving the quality of life. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of an educational intervention on the caring attitude of caregivers of individuals with intellectual disabilities.

This study was semi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design and a control group. Fifty caregivers in six residential rehabilitation centers were randomly divided into two groups. To measure the effectiveness of the intervention, the Goreczny's attitude questionnaire was used to collect data on the caregivers' attitudes towards individuals with intellectual disabilities. The questionnaire was administered before the intervention (pre-test) and after the intervention (post-test) to both the intervention and control groups. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 16 software.

Our study showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the mean attitude score of the caregivers in both the intervention and control groups before the implementation of the educational intervention (p>0.05) that indicates the two groups were similar in terms of their attitude scores at the beginning of the study. However, after the implementation of the educational program, there was a significant increase in the attitude score among the caregivers in the intervention group in which the mean score increased from 125 ± 9.50 before the intervention to 174 ± 6.42 after the intervention (p<0.001). This suggests that the educational intervention was effective in improving the caring attitude of the caregivers towards intellectually individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Our findings indicate that targeted training programs designed to enhance the attitudes of caregivers towards individuals with intellectual disabilities can result in a substantial improvement in the quality of care provided to this vulnerable population. As such, these results could serve as an important guide for policymakers and healthcare professionals in developing and implementing effective interventions to address the unique needs of individuals with intellectual disabilities.