Development of a tool to assess how people with intellectual disabilities respond to stigma

Aims To develop the Responding to Intellectual Disability Stigma (RIDS) tool in consultation with people with intellectual disabilities. To investigate its feasibility, including online delivery, as well as initial psychometric properties for future development in research and clinical settings. Methods The RIDS was created using a picture-story task, a scaffolding technique well-established in intellectual disability research. This is the first time this method has been used to investigate stigma responses. Participants were adults with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities, recruited via social media, third party, and voluntary organisations. The study was completed online via videocall due to restrictions on face-to-face research as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Content analysis was used to categorise responses to stigma, and examine the frequency of typologies within the data set, which were preliminarily examined for their association with wellbeing and self-esteem. Results Results indicate that the RIDS is a feasible method of eliciting responses to stigma in people with intellectual disabilities. The RIDS was well understood, produced good inter-rater reliability, and identified important relationships between certain emotions, appraisals, behaviours, and motivations within stigmatizing situations. Responses were similar to those described in the wider stigma literature. Results on the RIDS were not associated with measures of wellbeing and self-esteem. Conclusions Initial results suggest the RIDS is a promising measure which warrants further investigation and validation. The relationship between stigma, wellbeing, and self-esteem paints a complex picture and existing theoretical frameworks were somewhat supported by this study. The RIDS has the potential to be useful in both clinical and research settings