Project: Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) experience major health inequalities and face multiple barriers and obstacles regarding their health and health care. Like those without ID, people with ID can be mentally ill or mentally healthy. Yet, there is no common understanding or definition of positive mental health in people with ID, which impairs the validity and significance of research on this topic and ultimately limits the quality of mental health care, treatment, assessment, and mental health promotion activities. This contributes heavily to the inequalities regarding mental health in people with ID and is in direct conflict with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the United Nations (UN-CRPD).

The primary goal of the present project is to develop and provide the first definition of positive mental health in people with ID using a novel participatory approach.


Key Data

Principal Investigator: Maga Drin Elisabeth Zeilinger

Project Term: 16.01.2023 - 15.01.2026

Contact: dis-ability.psychologie@univie.ac.at

This project is fully funded by the ESPRIT-Program of the FWF.


 Participatory Research

We are closely collaborating with four co-researchers with intellectual disabilities. The co-researchers support the implementation of our project and are involved in all phases of the research process. The following images and the video provide an insight into the collaborative work with our co-researchers.

 Voices of our Co-Researchers


 Our Team

 Nicole Braunstein

Co-Researcher

 Josef Hochmeister

Co-Researcher

 Sophie Komenda-Schned

Project Employee, Doctoral Candidate

E-Mail: sophie.komenda-schned@univie.ac.at

Tel.: +43-1-4277-47260

 Sarah Landskron

Project Employee

E-Mail: sarah.jasmin.landskron@univie.ac.at

Tel.: +43-1-4277-47260

 Sandra Lugmair

Master’s degree student, Intern

 Paula Moritz

Project Employee

E-Mail: paula.moritz@univie.ac.at

Tel.: +43-1-4277-47260

 Karin Riegler

Co-Researcher

 Robert Saugspier

Co-Researcher

 Elisabeth Zeilinger

Principal Investigator

E-Mail: elisabeth.zeilinger@univie.ac.at

Tel.: +43-1-4277-47260