Importance and satisfaction of preventive health strategies in institutions for people with intellectual disabilities: a perspective of institutional directors

Aim: To explore the perceptions of institutional directors on the preventive health strategies for people with intellectual disabilities in institutions. Methods: A structured questionnaire was conducted by a cross-sectional postal survey in all registered institutions in Taiwan in 2002. A total of 157 questionnaires were mailed, of which 121 valid questionnaire were analyzed in this study. Results: The respondents indicated important perception to the preventive health strategies across the 17 criteria, the mean score of importance in preventive health strategies was from 8.4 to 9.7 (score 1-10). But the analysis found that there were many gaps of 'importance' compared with 'satisfactory' to implementation of preventive health strategies, particularly in the issues of 'thyroid screening for intellectual disabilities (ID) with Down syndrome', 'prevention and treatment of osteoporosis', and 'diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders', these health issues need to be improved in institutions. The present study found that the size and ownership of institutions were not related to the perceptions of importance and satisfaction toward preventive health strategies. Conclusions: The institutions should explore the reasons of why the failure to carry through important health plans into practice to ensure quality of health services for people with ID who living in institutions. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.