Rörliga medborgare, stela institutioner En teoriutvecklande studie om demokratins förverkligande över kommungränser i ett regionförstorat Västsverige
Introduction: The health for individuals with intellectual disabilities is asubject that is prioritized by the Swedish Institute for Public Health. Socialsupport has been proven to be important for health and quality of life. Despitethis fact there is no research available regarding the influence social support hason health and quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities in Sweden.Aim: To describe social support and the consequence of social support forhealth and quality of life for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Method:A litterature review of research in a defined area with a descriptive design.Systematic searches for articles were done in several databases and ultimately16 articles were chosen. Themes and categories were created with respect to theaim of this study during the analysis of the articles. Results: This study showsthat the structural support for individuals with intellectual disabilities most oftenconsisted of staff and family. These were able to provide different types offunctional support. Social support were proven to be important for health andquality of life, but not for the specific health outcomes; depression and phsyicaldisorders. Social strain/negative social support were proven to affect depression,psychological disorders and physical disorders. Discussion: The fact thatindividuals with intellectual disabilities had access to various types of socialsupport can be seen as positive. The fact that social support is important forhealth and quality of life is supported by former research. However formerresearch found associations between social support and other health outcomes,that were not found in this study. The influence on depression, psychologicaldisorders and physical disorders by social strain/negative social support issupported by former research.