Page 36 - Social networks of people with mild intellectual disabilities: characteristics and interventions

Chapter 2
First, a genogram (i.e. family tree) was used to map the characteristics of the participant’s family relations. Second, an ecogram was used to visualize the rest of the social network: three expanding circles are placed around the name of the participant to map friends, neighbours, colleagues, other acquaintances and professionals in the social network. The participant was asked to point to where a network member’s name should be written. The more important the network members were, the closer their names were written to the name of the participant. Third, the five-point scale used to measure the functional characteristics of the participant’s social network was visualized by positioning the response possibilities on the five steps of a stairway; the higher the score, the higher the step on the stairway.
2.2.3 Procedure
The study was approved by the scientific and ethics committee from one of the seven participating organizations, Dichterbij, from which seven clients participated (21.21% of the total number of participants). The support staff from the organizations were asked to approach clients meeting the inclusion criteria to participate in the research. Next, the 33 participants, all with mild to borderline ID, gave their permission. Written consent was received from all of them. The interviews were conducted by trained bachelor students at the HAN University of Applied Sciences. At the start of an interview, the participant was informed about the purpose of the study, the anonymous treatment of responses and the possibility to stop the interview at any time. To enhance the reliability of our data collection, we used an interview protocol and accompanying instruction manual (van Asselt-Goverts et al., 2012). The bachelor students were trained on the use of the protocol and interview conduct. The interviews were voice recorded and the responses of the participants were also noted during the actual interviews.
2.2.4 Data analysis
The data were processed and analyzed using SPSS. Network members were included in the dataset if they were older than 12 years. With respect to the first research question (i.e. the structural and functional characteristics of the social networks) we calculated for each participant:
1. The absolute and relative number of network members for the specific groups and subgroups: the family (divided into subgroups
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