Abstract
BackgroundDuring the COVID‐19 outbreak, service providers in the Netherlands had to switch towards providing remote support for people with intellectual disabilities living independently. This study aims to provide insight into the use of online support during the outbreak.MethodsWe analysed quantitative data on planned and unplanned contacts between the online support service DigiContact and its service users.ResultsThe results indicate that the COVID‐19 outbreak and the related containment measures had a strong impact on online support use, specifically on the unplanned use of online support.ConclusionOffering online support as a standard component of services for independently living people with intellectual disability enables service providers to be flexible and responsive towards fluctuations in both support needs and onsite support availability during a social crisis such as COVID‐19.
Highlights
Background During the COVID19 outbreak, service providers in the Netherlands had to switch towards providing remote support for people with intellectual disabilities living independently
We focus on the following question: how does the use of online support by people with ID living independently evolve during the first weeks of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the Netherlands?
The findings show that the use of the online support service DigiContact by independently living people with ID increased during the first weeks of the COVID‐19 pandemic, as people had more contacts with the service than before the outbreak
Summary
Background During the COVID19 outbreak, service providers in the Netherlands had to switch towards providing remote support for people with intellectual disabilities living independently. In the Netherlands, while residential care services for people with ID continued, visits from friends and family were mostly prohibited Services such as day activity centres and meeting centres, as well as some sheltered workshops, were put on hold for several months (Dutch Association for Healthcare Providers for People with Disabilities 2020; Woittiez et al 2020). At the time of writing this paper (June 2020), restrictive measures are being lifted, it remains to be seen whether relapses will occur causing measures to be reinstated
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