** NOT PEER REVIEWED **
Persons with intellectual disability (ID) are often not told about the death of a loved one as it is assumed that they would not be able to understand the concept of death. This can be an issues especially when a parent of a person with intellectual disability dies as the person not only loses their parent without explanation but often also has a change in living situation (such as being placed in a facility). The researchers of this study interviewed 110 Chinese adults with intellectual disability (80% with moderate ID, 15% mild, 2.5% severe) for their understanding of the concept of death and subconcepts of death (non-functional, causal, universal, irreversible, and inevitable). Of the interviewees, 12.7% had a full understanding of death including the subconcepts and 12.7% had no concept of death. Of the subcomponents, only 25% understood the concept of irreversibility while 65% understood inevitability. In addition, about half of participants had experienced bereavement before and this was associated with a higher understanding of death despite level of ID. Finally, this study compared their results to other studies from different countries- full understanding of death was a similar percentage but the subcomponents differed which may be related to cultural differences.
