The relative importance of key life domains for people with disability: findings from a cross-sectional survey of NDIS participants in Australia.

PURPOSE: This study investigates the relative importance for people with disability of key life domains and whether this differs between young people (15-24) and adults (25 and over).

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was conducted from 20 October to 31 December 2022 with National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants asked to rank eight domains: Choice & control, Daily living, Relationships, Home, Health & wellbeing, Lifelong learning, Work, Social, Community and Civic participation. Based on a random utility framework, the data were analysed based on a ranked-ordered logit model to estimate preference shares for the order of preferences across domains. Analyses were conducted separately for the young and adult cohorts. Sensitivity analyses were conducted by relaxing the equal importance of NDIS domains in the ranking exercise based on related life domain importance rating information, which was also collected in the survey.

RESULTS

Our sample consisted of 1140 NDIS participants. While the majority ranked the domains as equally important, answers from the rating module suggested otherwise. Adjustments for these differences lead to similar results with both age cohorts ranking Health & Wellbeing, Home and Daily living as the most important domains. These were followed by Relationships, Choice & control, Social, Community & Civic participation, Lifelong learning, and Work for younger people. For older people the importance order between the Choice & control and Relationships was switched.

CONCLUSION

Our results revealed similarity between what younger and older people perceive as important and despite often receiving a fair share of policy attention, work was seen, on average, as the least important life domain.