LIFT psychology primary care group for people with intellectual disabilities: can IAPT adapt?
Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities
ISSN: 2044-1282
Article publication date: 1 January 2014
Abstract
Purpose
There is a move to make primary care models of mental health care more accessible to people with intellectual disabilities (IAPT, 2009) but little evidence of their ability of services to make the necessary reasonable adjustments or their effectiveness (Dodd et al., 2011). The purpose of this paper is to describe a pilot project to evaluate an anxiety management group co-facilitated by Least Intervention First Time (LIFT) Psychology and Community Team for People with Learning Disabilities (CTPLD) services.
Design/methodology/approach
Five people attended a nine-week anxiety management group, adapted from a course offered by LIFT services. The Glasgow Anxiety Scale (GAS-ID) and a skills and knowledge assessment were completed pre-group, post-group and follow-up to evaluate outcome and consider the ability of LIFT to make reasonable adjustments to deliver effective services for people with intellectual disabilities.
Findings
Participants showed no significant reduction in anxiety levels but improvements in their skills and knowledge. An evaluation of the adjustments to make the group accessible for people with intellectual disabilities identified that some were feasible if offering the group on a long-term basis, and others were not. The viability of future groups is considered.
Originality/value
The paper looks at the viability of making reasonable adjustments to psychoeducational groups within Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services to better meet the needs of people with intellectual disabilities, an area of limited research. It raises dilemmas and considerations for the future development of such services.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Thanks primarily go to the people who took part in the group and gave their permission for their results to be used in writing this paper. The authors would also like to thank the carers who participated in the group. Thanks to the staff and management of the Community Learning Disability team and LIFT Psychology for their support and for allowing us the time to pilot this project. With final thanks to Kerry Abbott, Linda Walz, Liz Howells, Jackie Freeman, Sharon Weinstein and Lorna Burns.
Citation
Kirk, J., Sehmi, A., Hazeldine, C., Palmer, G. and Ruddle, G. (2014), "LIFT psychology primary care group for people with intellectual disabilities: can IAPT adapt?", Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 51-62. https://doi.org/10.1108/AMHID-12-2012-0008
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited