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Ervaringen en uitdagingen van mensen met een licht verstandelijke beperking tijdens het zoeken van medische hulp van hun huisarts: een interviewstudie.

Oosterveld, M., Boeije, H. Ervaringen en uitdagingen van mensen met een licht verstandelijke beperking tijdens het zoeken van medische hulp van hun huisarts: een interviewstudie. Nederlands tijdschrift voor Artsen voor Verstandelijk Gehandicapten: 2021, 39(2), p. 89-93.
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Background
People with intellectual disabilities (ID) often have low health literacy as a result of their limited language comprehension. The aim of this study was to explore the difficulties Dutch people with ID experience during the process of considering and seeking medical help from their GP. The study was intended as input for an online intervention supporting health literacy.

Methods
A qualitative study, in which 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with people with mild ID and 4 with relatives of people with mild ID. The interviews were analysed following the principles of thematic analysis.

Results
Difficulties were experienced in the following activities: assessing and proactively reacting to health complaints, processing health information, communicating with a GP, and retaining information from the consultation. Support workers and relatives play an important role in all these activities. Conclusions: To increase the capacity of people with ID to manage their health and seek care from their GP, it is important to support them in the activities they find difficult. Recommendations resulting from the study have been incorporated in an online intervention ‘Naar je huisarts’ (www.naarjehuisarts.nl).