How do we prevent another Winterbourne? A literature review

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the precipitants of physical and psychological abuse of individuals with intellectual disabilities in order to understand why mistreatment continues to be prevalent. In particular, the importance of contributing factors were explored such as challenging behaviour and lack of staff training, in an attempt to prevent another “Winterbourne”.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature search using the search terms “Intellectual disability”, “learning disability”, “abuse”, “challenging behaviour” and “residential” was conducted. Articles were included using the criteria: adults with intellectual disabilities, concentration on neglect and physical abuse, abuse by staff members and articles written within the last 15 years. Using these criteria, a total of 19 articles were isolated. Additional articles were located through reference to citation lists. In total, 31 relevant articles were identified.

Findings

The majority of research agrees that a meaningful increase in risk of abuse does exist for individuals with intellectual disabilities. There is a lack of recent empirical evidence discussing the incidence of abuse, potential causes and the long-term impact of staff training in reducing the incidence of abuse. These gaps may be due to the subjective definition of abuse, the current “reactive” approach to abuse, the ability of perpetrators to hide mistreatment and difficulty in quantifying the difference that increased staff training has on performance. More research is required to adequately protect individuals with intellectual disabilities in the residential setting.

Originality/value

The paper highlights gaps in the current literature and identifies potential areas that could be improved in order to reduce the prevalence of abuse in residential care.

Citation

Wright, S. (2013), "How do we prevent another Winterbourne? A literature review", Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, Vol. 7 No. 6, pp. 365-371. https://doi.org/10.1108/AMHID-02-2013-0013