SPECTROM PDP
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Short-term Psycho-Education for Carers To Reduce Over Medication of people with intellectual disabilities: Programme Development Project (SPECTROM PDP)
IRAS ID
331644
Contact name
Shoumitro (Shoumi) Deb
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 31 days
Research summary
People with learning disabilities are often given medication when they become distressed to manage their behaviours. They also take this medication for a long time and often nobody is checking how the person is doing on the medication. These medications are licensed to be used for the treatment of psychiatric problems, not for problem behaviours. In addition to this, a lot of people with learning disabilities are already taking medications for their physical health. Taking medications for both physical health and problem behaviours unnecessarily can lead to overmedication.
Those who support people with learning disabilities can help in cutting down the use of medications. This can be done by training staff on how to help people with learning disabilities without relying on medications. SPECTROM training is one such training. We worked with people with learning disabilities, support staff, family carers, and doctors to develop SPECTROM. SPECTROM encourages staff to understand people with learning disabilities and their behaviours, find alternative ways to handle distress, and support them without using medications. The training also teaches about different types of medications and learn how to handle their own stress.
The SPECTROM training was delivered to 60 (20 in UK; 40 in Australia) staff and all found the training very useful. We are now planning to discuss with organisations on how this training can be rolled out. We are planning to randomly select eight or more community homes, in which staff from half of the homes will be trained in SPECTROM and the other half will receive just their usual training but not SPECTROM. We want to see whether those who receive SPECTROM training feel more empowered, have an improved attitude to helping people with distressed behaviour without using medications, and the people they support receive less medicine than those who don’t receive the training.
REC name
London - Camberwell St Giles Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/LO/0667
Date of REC Opinion
29 Aug 2023
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion