Editorial

Citation

Hardy, S. and O’Hara, J. (2013), "Editorial", Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, Vol. 7 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/amhid.2013.54207aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, Volume 7, Issue 1

Welcome to the first issue of 2013. We hope you had a good seasonal break and feel refreshed for the coming year. We invite contributions from our readers to the journal of papers on innovative practice, research, case studies, service and policy related issues and literature reviews. We would welcome submissions from the range of health and social care professionals, but additionally those who use services and people who care for them. Our international readership is steadily increasing and would particularly welcome submissions from our readers across the globe.

We have varied issue to begin 2013. This includes a paper on services for people whose behaviour is described as challenging, two papers on education and training initiatives, a review of quality of life (QoL) indicators for the use of psychopharmalogical interventions for people with autism spectrum disorders, and a paper exploring satisfaction of a specialist community child and adolescent mental health service. We conclude with a case study describing the use of cognitive behaviour therapy.

The first paper is by Jones, who explores what needs to be done to develop competent residential services for people whose behaviour is described as challenging. This is especially timely in respect of the inquiry that took place in the UK last year in respect of abusive practices with this vulnerable group. The paper reviews previous guidance and pays particular attention to the logistical issues of providing residential services, such as size of services, their location and design, the use of the positive behavioural support approach and describes some exciting developments in Wales.

The health of people with intellectual disabilities is everybody’s business and they are likely to come into contact with the full range of health and social care professionals. The skills of staff will range from those who require a basic awareness of the needs of people with intellectual disabilities and how to adapt their communication to those who undertake comprehensive in-depth assessments. We have two papers describing educational initiatives at two different staff groups.

Sinai and colleagues describe a project involving the education of undergraduate medical students. This is an extremely important group to capture early on in training. The study investigated the impact of a 14 week course on the knowledge and attitudes of the students towards people with intellectual disabilities. A number of measures were used with a starting cohort of 136 students and 133 at post measurement. It was found that student knowledge had increased and though attitude had not changed following the course, attitudes remained favourable.

Our second educational themed paper by Herron and Priest looked at the existing skills and knowledge of support staff in understanding the mental health needs of older people with intellectual disabilities, in particular dementia and to highlight potential gaps. In total, 14 support staff were presented with a series of case vignettes, in which they had to identify early, intermediate and later signs of dementia in this population and their responses to these signs. Participants were generally better at recognising the later signs of dementia. The study concluded that there is a significant need for mental health training for frontline staff, especially around dementia, its indicators and trajectory.

Our next paper is from Bertelli and colleagues in Italy which examines psychopharmacological research in people with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). The authors expected the literature to include the use of behavioural and functional measurement as outcome indicators. They wanted to explore the concept of QoL as an indicator and conducted a literature review. They found a distinct lack of studies that included QoL as an outcome measure. As QoL increases to become an important outcome through health research the authors recommend its inclusion in psychopharmacological studies and people with ASD.

In 2010 the Royal College of Psychiatrists published guidance on “Psychiatric services for children and adolescents with learning disabilities” (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2010). The paper outlines a “model service” including factors such as personnel, location, community and inpatient services. Chilvers et al. studied whether a tier four mental health of child and adolescent intellectual disability service was meeting the complex needs of children and families by evaluating performance on the “model service”. Postal questionnaires were sent to parents and children using the service and results showed a high level of satisfaction against the “model service” indicators.

The challenges to using psychological therapies with people with intellectual disabilities has been well documented in past decades, but clinicians and academics have made great strides in adapting interventions in recent years. Our final paper by Gerry and Crabtree is such an example. They describe the use of a cognitive behavioural intervention with a young man who was experiencing low mood and the further implications of using such techniques with this client group.

We finish with some sad news. Yolanda Zimock, a service user consultant with the Estia Centre and valued contributor to this journal unexpectedly passed away in the autumn. Yolanda first became involved with the Estia Centre in 2000 when she was one of the founding members of the Tuesday Group. The group met regularly in south east London and discussed mental health and ways to stay well. Yolanda was an active member; she was never afraid to speak her mind and always had an opinion, which were inevitably promoting the rights of people with intellectual disabilities. Yolanda regularly contributed to staff training, challenging the perceptions of support workers, gave presentations to community mental health teams on how to work with people with intellectual disabilities, spoke at national conferences, participated in audits, was a member of several steering groups for research projects and with other members of the Tuesday Group published several journal articles. Yolanda was also a valued member of the Lewisham Speaking Up Group and served a term of office in Lewisham’s People’s Parliament.

Yolanda will be sadly missed but we thank her for helping to promote the mental health of people with intellectual disabilities.

Steve Hardy, Jean O’Hara