title: Attitudes towards people with intellectual disability in the UK and Libya: A cross-cultural comparison.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The attitude of the general population towards people with intellectual disability (ID) provides important background for policy development. Furthermore, because of changes in attitudes across cultures, it is vital to ground policy development for each country in data from that country.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This paper aimed to undertake a cross-cultural study, investigating attitudes to people with ID in Libya in the year 2011, and to compare the Libyan data with those for the UK.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper provides a cross-cultural analysis of attitudes to people with ID, using a questionnaire study of three groups in Libya and in the UK: science students, psychology students and professionals in ID support. The questionnaire used was the established Community Living Attitude Scales for Mental Retardation (CLAS-MR).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In terms of the four CLAS-MR sub-scales, the Libyan sample showed significantly less favourable scores on Empowerment, Similarity and Exclusion than the UK sample, but no significant difference on the Sheltering sub-scale. Within-country analysis indicated no main effects of gender on all four sub-scales in Libya and the UK.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study is the first to undertake quantitative analysis of attitudes to people with ID in Libya. The attitudes were in general less favourable than in the UK and other Western countries, but showed similarities with studies of attitudes to people with ID in Pakistan.
authors.affiliation: University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. Electronic address: aishaonline_2010@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Aisha M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Benomir
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Roderick I
authors.initials: RI
authors.lastname: Nicolson
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Nigel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Beail
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability; D008002:Libya; D008297:Male; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012929:Psychological Distance; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Arab; CLAS-MR; Community Living Attitude Scale for Mental Retardation; Cross-cultural