Wordless vaccine information for people with intellectual disabilities
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Beyond Words: Co-creation And Evaluation of a Visual REsource to support COVID-19 Vaccine uptake in people with Intellectual DisabilitieS (CAREVIS)
IRAS ID
296159
Contact name
Natalie Pattison
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Hertfordshire
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 31 days
Research summary
The aim of our project is to develop a picture book for people with learning disabilities that explains in pictures about having an injection for the Coronavirus (COVID-19). There is already a lot of information on television, in the newspapers, on the internet and in hospitals and GP practices about the Coronavirus and the new vaccinations that have recently been developed. But this mostly involves a lot of words and sometimes in Easy Read – words and pictures. For some people, words are very hard to follow and to understand and remember.
Our project will develop a picture story to provide information in pictures about having the Coronavirus injection. As we are developing the book, we will then ask people with learning disabilities whether they think the book is easy to understand and make any changes they suggest.
The picture book will then be distributed widely to people with learning disabilities and people who care for them, including family and friends, paid carers, nurses, social workers and other professionals who support them. The book will be freely available to download from a website and available to print off. We will advertise and distribute the book through the NHS, GP surgeries, Books Beyond Words, the Royal College of Nursing and other relevant organisations.
We will then evaluate whether the picture book has been useful, in different ways:
1) We will interview people with learning disabilities who used the picture book and ask whether it was helpful in explaining the Coronavirus injection.
2) We will interview carers (family and friends), paid carers, nurses, social workers and other professionals and ask them if the picture book supported conversations with people they care for, about having the Coronavirus injection.
3) In one county in England (Hertfordshire) we will find out how may picture books were distributed among people with learning disabilities who live in Hertfordshire (there are around 21,000 people with a learning disability living in the county). We will also find out how many people with a learning disability have had a Coronavirus injection.
4) We will send out a national questionnaire to professionals who work across the UK support people with learning disabilities (such as nurses, doctors, social workers).REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/EM/0089
Date of REC Opinion
15 Apr 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion