Employment and attendance in day care centres for people with mild intellectual disabilities - do age, gender, functional level or hospital admissions matter?

BACKGROUND: Workforce inclusion is an important political goal in many countries. However, nearly 70% of Norwegians registered with mild intellectual disabilities (IDs) are not registered employed or attending in day care centres. This study investigates the association between age, gender, functional level and hospital admissions with employment or attendance in public financed, community-based day care centres for adults with mild IDs in Norway. METHOD: This study is based on data from a linkage of the national population-based registries from 2013 to 2015: Statistics Norway (SSB), the Norwegian Information System for the Nursing and Care Sector (IPLOS) and the Norwegian Patient Registry (NPR). The sample consisted of 2370 adults registered with a mild ID, receiving disability pension in Norway, aged 18-67 years. Binary and multinomial logistic analyses, adjusted for age, gender, functional level and hospital admissions, were performed. RESULTS: In 2015, 45.7% and 19.6% of the samples aged 20-31 and 52-63 years, respectively, were registered as employed or in day care centres. Participation in day care is a public service registered in IPLOS, which requires registration of functional level, while attendance in employment support is registered in SSB, where functional level is not registered. Compared with people registered with a high functional level, the probability of being employed or in day care centres was lower for people without registration of functional level. People with hospital admissions were less likely to be employed, especially if they had both psychiatric and somatic hospital admissions. People were less likely to attend day care and open employment only if they had a combination of both types of hospital admissions. Attendance in day care centres was less likely for men than women. CONCLUSIONS: Older people with mild ID, without registered functional level (meaning not receiving public community-based services) and with a history of hospital admissions were significantly less likely to be employed or participate in day care centres. The clear association between not being employed or attending day care centres and not having one's functional level registered implies there is a need for increased focus on how to enhance work participation among people with mild IDs who are not within the system of receiving public services.

Role of the Binder in Light Discharge Characteristics of ZnO Layers.

In order to establish a correlation between the photoresponse of a zinc oxide coating and the nature of its binder, we measured the light induced discharge current. Since, in order to reduce the number of variables of the system, the solvent used for coating the layer should remain unchanged, the choice of polymer binders is considerably narrowed. This problem was solved by selecting a family of copolymers in which vinyl acetate, as the constant component, was copolymerized with one of the components: vinyl pyrrolidone, ethylene, vinyl laurate, vinyl chloride, vinyl chloride-maleic acid, and crotonic acid. With the exception of the latter, all polymers could be coated from a dichloroethane solution. The non-dye-sensitized layers were exposed to uv light. It was found that light discharge current is composed of two separate functions. Attempts to describe the complex curve by mathematical functions are discussed. Depending on nature and amount of the binder used, one discharge function predominates, thus creating either a rapid or a slow photoresponse. It is believed that the intrinsic photoresponse of zinc oxide is rapid, but is slowed down by using (a) increasing amounts of binder, (b) by the presence of electron acceptor functions on the polymer chain. The photoresponse of zinc oxide-polyvinyl acetate coatings is reduced to shorter times by replacing vinyl acetate segments by vinyl chloride or vinyl laurate portions. The response time is increased by the presence of crotonic and maleic acid. The photoresponse of slow layers may be accelerated by increasing the intensity of corona charging; rapid coatings are less affected by charging conditions. The consequences of these findings on electrophotographic image properties are discussed.