Relationships of people with learning disabilities in Ireland

Abstract

The Official Journal of the British Institute of Learning Disabilities for a change in the laws concerning sexuality and learning disability in the Republic of Ireland.

Views and Experiences of People with Intellectual Disabilities Regarding Intimate Relationships: A Qualitative Metasynthesis

“…Fourteen studies were selected for the metasynthesis [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68], providing a total of 326 participants (167 women, 159 men), aged 18-78 years. There was a large heterosexual bias, with only five participants identifying as gay (one woman, four men), two of which described having had relationships with others of both genders.…”

“…Congruity between philosophical perspective and methodology utilized could not be established for a number of studies owing to a failure to identify the former [55,57,59,62,65,60]. Where the methodology used was not specified in two studies [55,59], correspondence with the authors established that thematic analysis had been used in both; the accessible format of the article, and the 'participatory action research' approach used, were the respective reasons the method of analysis had been omitted from the write up.…”

“…Where the methodology used was not specified in two studies [55,59], correspondence with the authors established that thematic analysis had been used in both; the accessible format of the article, and the 'participatory action research' approach used, were the respective reasons the method of analysis had been omitted from the write up. Whether study five's methodology had been appropriate for the question remains unclear, since the method of data collection had also been unconventional.…”

“…All but four studies neglected to divulge the researchers' context in terms of beliefs and values [55,63,67,68], which leaves the reader uninformed about any potential biases/perspectives in the development of research questions and how the study is conducted. Furthermore, though some reflexivity was described, very little consideration was offered as to how the context and perspectives of each researcher may have influenced the participants and the interpretation of the findings, or evidence of how this had been managed.…”

“…Participants' voices were well represented across almost all of the studies, but where this was absent or insufficient it was a result of a lack of transparency as to which participants were cited [55,63,64], less emphasis being placed on those not currently in a relationship [61], or a large sample [55] (97 participants represented through 18 citations of raw data), making it difficult for the reader to judge how closely the interpretations may fit the results.…”