Assessing the Right to Interpersonal Relationships, Home and Family for People With Intellectual Disabilities

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises in Article 23 the right to marriage, family, parenthood and interpersonal relationships. However, monitoring this right is challenging due to a lack of evaluation tools.

This study presents the psychometric validation of items assessing Article 23, which makes up the interpersonal relationships subscale of the #Rights4MeToo Scale, based on responses from 1215 people with intellectual disabilities, family members and professionals.

The findings revealed a final unidimensional 7-item structure, high internal consistency, full invariance across gender and partial invariance across respondent types.

This subscale is established as a helpful tool with adequate evidence of validity and reliability for assessing the respect and exercise of this right, with significant implications for support planning and public policy concerning sexual and sentimental relationships, ultimately enhancing the quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities.