Social support and coping with stress in people with intellectual disabilities

The perception of the existence of a network of social support cushions the impact that stress generated in the health of people. In this study the differences in the perception of a social support network and its influence on the type of coping strategy used to stressful situations, in a sample of 131 adults, 54 with and 77 without intellectual disabilities are analyzed, mean age 35.71 years (SD= 13.11). Participants were evaluated using the Spanish adaptation of the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI). The results show that people with intellectual disabilities believe they have less social support and the kind of person providing support is not decisive in the kind of behavioral and cognitive effort used to deal with the stressful demands.