The prevalence of intellectual disability in Limburg, the Netherlands.
BACKGROUND
Current changes in care philosophy and diversity in care arrangements caused the need for a new estimate of the number of people with intellectual disability (ID), based on recent data. Previous estimates were based on client registrations, which was thought unreliable at this time. This manuscript studies the question how many people with ID can be found in (part of) the Netherlands.


METHODS
Identification of people with ID through a combination of general practice (GP) data bases and service registrations in the province of Limburg.


RESULTS
The prevalence of people with ID appeared to be between 0.64% and 0.70%. About 0.21-0.27% were living with family or on their own; 55% of them did not use common ID services.


CONCLUSIONS
Results are based on a combination of identification methods. Thirteen per cent of uncertain cases led to minimum and maximum estimates of the population. Limitations of the method and alternative ways of data collection are discussed.
van Schrojenstein Lantman-de Valk
H M J
HM
Department of General Practice, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands. henny.lantman@hag.unimaas.nl
Wullink
M
M
van den Akker
M
M
van Heurn-Nijsten
E W A
EW
Metsemakers
J F M
JF
Dinant
G J
GJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019992:Databases as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012112:Residential Facilities; D017678:Sex Distribution