Social representations of intellectual disability; a comparison between cultures

OBJECTIVES

People with Intellectual disability consistently appear to be one of the most looked-down upon and repressed subgroups of society in many cultures. The main aim of this study was to compare social representations of intellectual disability in its various aspects between different cultures.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study was conducted in four different sites: Beirut-Lebanon, Algiers-Algeria, Tours-France and Namur-Belgium. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire evaluating social representations of intellectual disability.

RESULTS

A total of 755 participants consented to take part in the study. Gender only affected social representations in the Lebanese population. Overall, Algerians appeared to have the least positive social representations and Lebanon to have more positive attitudes, while France and Belgium tended to have the most favourable representations.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Findings highlight the imbalance between a European and a non-European country showing the importance of developing tailored interventions to improve general attitudes towards intellectual disability.

[Contribution of FreeStyle Libre® in the care of diabetic patients : experience at the CHU of Liege]

Since July 2016, diabetic patients included in the INAMI glycemic self-monitoring system in category A in Belgium can benefit from a new system for measuring the concentration of subcutaneous glucose : FreeStyle Libre® (FSL) from Abbott company. The main advantage of this technology is that it is less invasive as it does not require finger blood sampling and allows patients to obtain, in addition to the instantaneous value of glucose concentration, retrospective kinetic data, but also prospective trend of its kinetics. In this study, we mainly evaluated the contribution of FSL on the overall equilibration of diabetes and on the time spent in hypoglycaemia. We also asked patients how satisfied they were with this system. Data from 838 diabetic patients (type 1 or total insulin deficiency) were collected between May 2016 and October 2017, 645 patients with FSL system and 193 preferring to continue self-monitoring of capillary blood glucose (SBG). In the FSL group, compared to the SBG group, there was a slight decrease in HbA1c estimated at 0.15 ± 0.073 % after 15 months. This decrease appears mainly when the starting level is high (HbA1c superior to 7.5 %). Patients perform an average of 8.8 checks per day : the more patients perform daily scans, the greater the number of data comprised within the target, that is, the better the overall glucose control. A higher number of scans is also associated with a decrease in the average duration of hypoglycaemia. Finally, the satisfaction survey shows a high degree of patient satisfaction with the use of FSL.