Women with and without intellectual disabilities and psychiatric disorders: A comparison of the literature

This chapter is based upon an oral paper presented at the IASSID World Congress in South Africa in 2008 and has also been published (for a more comprehensive review of this topic see Taggart et al., 2008). This literature review compares and contrasts three key areas in women with and without intellectual disability focusing on: mental health conditions, the psych-social contextual background of how these conditions develop and the clinical presentation of these conditions. The World Health Organisation (2000) has reported that mental ill health will double by the year 2020 and this will have important ramifications for women particularly, as they are more likely to develop mental health problems compared to men. Moreover, there is a strong body of evidence to show that people with intellectual disabilities are more likely to develop mental health problems compared to the non-intellectual disability population (Bouras & Holt, 2007). However, little is known about the mental health of women with intellectual disability.