This study examined a UK sample of parents caring for their adult offspring with intellectual disabilities, and the factors contributing to their quality of life and experiences of caregiving. Structured interviews were conducted with 62 parents of adults with intellectual disabilities. On several indices of quality of life, parents did not seem to be functioning as well as caregiving parents in the US, or as well as adults in the general US population.The offspring's level of challenging behaviour and physical dependency and the parent's satisfaction with informal support were associated with parental quality of life. The salience that parents placed on their post‐parental life style was also associated with quality of life, with ‘captive’ parents faring more poorly than ‘captivated’ parents.
Accessible summary Some people who find it hard to manage their emotions can be helped by a therapy called Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT). Some studies show that DBT might help people with an intellectual disability. We ran a group to see if DBT helped people coming to the group to feel better and manage their difficult feelings more easily. Group members brought their support staff to the group. We asked people what they thought about the group and asked them to fill in some questionnaires to see whether they felt better. The group seemed to help people, even after the group ended. We think DBT might be a useful treatment for people with intellectual disabilities. Abstract BackgroundA growing body of evidence supports the use of Dialectic Behaviour Therapy with people with an intellectual disability. Various adaptation have been used in studies exploring the efficacy of this intervention. MethodA Dialectic Behaviour Therapy DBT skills training group was attended by people with an intellectual disability and their support staff. Standardised measures of psychological well‐being, overall functioning and psychological distress were taken before and after the group and at 4 months follow‐up. Qualitative interviews were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. ResultsResults suggested an improvement in all areas for three of the four participants, which were largely maintained at follow‐up. ConclusionsThis study adds to the growing literature supporting the use of DBT with people with an intellectual disability. The role of support workers in supporting generalisation of skills is considered. Ideas for improving the quality of future studies are considered.
Accessible summary• We want to know what people with learning disabilities think about working with clinical psychologists. • We interviewed eight people with learning disabilities about their experience of seeing a clinical psychologist. • We summarised all the information we got from the interviews to share it with other professionals and with service users. • We used the information to make our psychology service more helpful for our service users. • We want to include the views of people with learning disabilities in planning our psychology service. SummaryClinical psychologists are well placed to work with people with learning disabilities given the high prevalence of psychiatric disorders in this population and the specialist training undertaken by psychologists. The evidence for psychological interventions in learning disabilities is scarce compared to the evidence for mainstream psychological interventions. This is because of the methodological issues in conducting quantitative research. A way forward to add to the evidence is to use qualitative methods to investigate the views of people with learning disabilities. The aim of the present study was to explore the views of eight people with learning disabilities about their experiences of working with clinical psychologists. Thematic analysis revealed three themes from the narratives: the therapeutic relationship, change and the expectations/perceptions of participants about clinical psychologists. When developing the quality of clinical psychology services for people with learning disabilities, providers should consider the views of people with learning disabilities in accordance with government policy. Limitations of the study are highlighted and further research suggested.
People with learning disabilities are known to experience barriers to accessing mainstream mental health services, and also, to have higher rates of mental health needs. Training has previously been delivered to mainstream practitioners to enhance their confidence and self-efficacy when working therapeutically with people with learning disabilities and to promote positive attitudes towards working with this group of people (Dagnan et al., 2018; Cantrell & Westbrook, 2019) with positive outcomes on these areas. Our service evaluation was of a one-day online training course to high intensity Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) trainees. It found that the teaching also demonstrated positive change in confidence, self-efficacy and attitudes. Although the percentage increase was smaller than most of those shown in previous studies this was found to be due to a higher baseline for this sample. Ideas for further research were identified including the further exploration of High intensity (IAPT) trainees’ prior experience of working therapeutically with people with learning disabilities and how this could translate into more tailored training. A key recommendation was the use of online training for IAPT trainees and practitioners to be considered as an option due to benefits in terms of the flexibility this offers including training large groups.Easy to read summary■We delivered teaching to trainee therapists who work in mental health services.■The teaching was online.■Before the teaching we asked the trainees about their confidence to give therapy to people with learning disabilities and how important they thought it was for mental health services to work with people with learning disabilities.■We asked them the same questions at the end of the teaching.■The trainees were more confident to work with people with learning disabilities after the teaching.■The trainees were more positive about working with people with learning disabilities after the teaching.
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