The Attachment Strengths and Needs Interview for parents of children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities: An acceptability and feasibility study

Background
The feasibility and acceptability was explored of the newly-constructed Attachment Strengths and Needs Interview for parents of children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities.

Method
A partially mixed methods approach (with focus on the quantitative data) was used to clarify parents’ and professionals’ viewpoints regarding the acceptability of the interview through websurvey-ratings.

Results
Parents generally felt appreciated during or after the interview, were motivated to work on the proposed goals and felt the interview covered their actual needs, but were, however, more neutral on the aspects of reflection and learning. Professionals indicated that the interview gathered sufficient information on most elements of interest at the start of an intervention trajectory, but generally missed information on the origins of parents’ questions and the families’ expectations towards taking part in an intervention.

Conclusions
The current study showed preliminary support for the feasibility and acceptability of the Attachment Strengths and Needs Interview, as part of a broader intake procedure, to inform attachment-focused interventions for parents of children with disabilities by identifying their strengths and needs.