Expert opinions on community services for people with intellectual disabilities and mental health problems

• Published in: Advances in mental health and intellectual disabilities 2013-05, Vol.7 (3), p.169-174
• Main Authors: Hemmings, Colin, Al-Sheikh, Alaa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attitudes; Caregivers; Carers; Coding; Community mental health services; Community Relations; Community service; Community Services; Crisis Management; Delphi Technique; Developmental disabilities; Disabled people; Ethics; Experts; Flexibility; Focus Groups; Handicapped accessibility; Health Needs; Health problems; Health research; Intellectual disabilities; Intellectual Disability; Intellectually disabled people; Interviews; Joint working; Learning disabilities; Learning disabled people; Leisure; Mental disorders; Mental health; Mental health care; Mental health services; Methodological problems; Occupational Therapy; Opinions; Out of working hours; Psychiatric disorders; Psychosis; Qualitative research; Quality of care; Quality of life; Semi Structured Interviews; Social workers; Software; Studies; Training; Transcripts (Written Records)
• ISSN: 2044-1282; 2044-1290
• DOI: 10.1108/20441281311320756

Purpose - There has been limited evidence on which to base services in the community for people who have intellectual disabilities and coexisting mental health problems. Recent research involving service users, carers and professionals has identified a number of key service components that community services should provide. More detail is needed to explore how best these components could be implemented and delivered. This paper aims to discuss these issues.Design methodology approach - A total of 14 multidisciplinary professionals from specialist intellectual disabilities services in the UK were interviewed about their opinions on four key areas of community service provision. These included the review and monitoring of service users, their access to social, leisure and occupational activities, the support, advice and training around mental health for a person's family or carers and "out of hours" and crisis responses. The interview data was used for coding using the NVivo 7 software package and then analyzed using thematic analysis.Findings - Analysis of participants' views on these key essential service components produced wider themes of importance. The ten major emergent themes for services were: their configuration structure, their clarity of purpose care pathways, their joint working, their training, their flexibility, their resources, their evidence-base, being holistic multidisciplinary, being needs-led personalised and providing accessible information.Originality value - These views of experts can help inform further research for the development and the evaluation of services.