SCP statistics
According to statistics from the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP), there are between 154,000 and 528,000 people in the Netherlands with MID. This condition is defined as a low level of intellectual functioning (an IQ between 50 and 85) together with limited social adaptation skills as well as a lasting need for support. Assuming a normal intelligence spread in the population, 2.5% of Dutch people have an IQ between 50 and 70 and 12.5% (2.2 million people) have an IQ between 70 and 85.
No exact statistics are available but there is a consensus among experts that people with MID are three to four times more at risk of developing a psychological disorder than people in the general population. Additionally, people with MID are more vulnerable to the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs and they are more likely to come into contact with the police and the judicial system.
What makes people with MID vulnerable?
Several factors are at play in this added vulnerability. Regularly, excessively high demands are made of people with MID. More is demanded from them than they can handle, partly because their disability is not immediately visible. They are very sensitive to influences from their social environment and their skills for dealing with stressful events are limited. They also generally have a lower socio-economic status and they have trouble keeping themselves going in daily life. Because of our society’s increasingly complex nature, people with MID reach the limits of their capacities and run into difficulty. (Psychological and social) care and welfare facilities do not always have the right answer to this problem.
Improving care for people with MID
The Trimbos Institute wants to improve the care for people with MID, working closely together with care and welfare facilities. This is why the Institute took the initiative in 2007 to improve our knowledge of prevention and guidance of (problematic) substance abuse by (young) people with MID, together with the national association of remedial treatment centres for MID (VOBC-LVG), Tactus Addiction Treatment and Novadic Kentron. In addition to this, a number of different products have been developed recently concerning MID and substance abuse, such as a report on risk behaviour and infectious diseases in people with MID, and the board game TRIP, specially designed to raise consciousness among young people with a partial mental impairment about the dangers of alcohol and drugs, but in a playful way. TRIP was developed in cooperation with Brijder Addiction Care.
The Trimbos Institute is also active in the field of MID and (forensic) regional mental health services. In 2008 a care program was developed for people with MID in detention, and recently a research report was published about intensive ambulant care for people with MID combined with serious psychiatric and/or behavioural problems.
The Trimbos Institute will continue to engage in initiatives in the coming years for this vulnerable group in our society.
More information: Els Bransen
