“You Shouldn’t Look at Us Strangely”: An Exploratory Study on Personal Perspectives on Quality of Life of Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in Residential Youth Care

Abstract

Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) have complex needs and experience challenges in various developmental areas and life domains. The majority of current studies regarding Quality of Life (QOL) among adolescents often adopt a quantitative design to assess health-related aspects of QOL. While considerable progress has been made in acknowledging the rights of children and adolescents to express their views on life and well-being, there remains a lack of research regarding adolescents with EBD and their personal perspectives on QOL. This qualitative study aims to address this gap. Focus groups (N = 6) were conducted with 25 adolescents aged 13 to 17 years living in a large-scale residential care organization. An expert panel, comprising six experts, was convened to classify the results from the focus groups (i.e., indicators) according to the QOL framework by Schalock and Verdugo (2002). An in-depth overview of the wide variety of aspects adolescents value with regard to their QOL was presented. The findings highlighted the importance of adopting a broad and holistic approach, instead of a traditional health-related and deficit-oriented one, when aiming to enhance the QOL of adolescents with EBD. Furthermore, several benefits for research and clinical practice relating to adolescents’ personal perspectives on QOL were discussed.