Situational experiences of meaningfulness of support staff during their interactions with people with profound intellectual disabilities: An explorative study

Background: Support staff often face challenges with respect to experiencing meaningful moments of interaction with people with profound intellectual disabilities. Explicating such situational experiences of meaningfulness by staff members could facilitate the experience of meaningfulness for all staff.

Method: In this multiple case study, three staff members indicated specific moments of interaction as meaningful when viewing a recording of themselves interacting with a person with profound intellectual disabilities. Subsequently, they were asked to explain why they experienced each specific moment as meaningful. Their answers were thematically analysed.

Results: Two overarching clusters were identified as being related to meaningfulness: (1) experiencing meaning in certain actions, and (2) experiencing meaning in being together.

Conclusion: In interactions, support staff need to be aware of the tiny signals of people with profound intellectual disabilities and give meaning to them, and subsequently link “what happens” to their own professional aims and values to experience meaningfulness.