Suchergebnisse

Government policy continues to emphasise the commissioning and needs‐assessment role of health authorities, local authorities and — to a greater extent — general practitioners. To date, much available information for this purpose has been based on service utilisation data or from registers based on case finding from service contacts. As an alternative, we conducted secondary analyses of the national Surveys of Disability of Children and Adults by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. The prevalence of intellectual disability for people who had 'mental handicap' reported as an underlying health problem was 3.5 per 1000 in the overall population. Rates rose from 1.7 per 1000 among those aged 4 and under, reaching a peak of 6.3 per 1000 among 16–19 year olds and falling to 2.8 per 1000 among people aged 75 or more. Residence in a communal establishment increased markedly with age. People in households had high levels of disability and consequently problems with personal care. Furthermore, behaviour problems were commonplace. Consequently, carers spent long hours caring and often reported adverse effects on their health.

AbstractBackgroundActive Support, now widely adopted by disability support organizations, is difficult to implement. The study aim was to identify the factors associated with good Active Support.MethodsData on service user and staff characteristics, quality of Active Support and practice leadership were collected from a sample of services from 14 organizations annually for between 2 and 7 years, using questionnaires, structured observations and interviews. Data were analysed using multilevel modelling (MLM).ResultsPredictors of good Active Support were adaptive behaviour, practice leadership, Active Support training, and time since its implementation. Heterogeneity, having more than six people in a service and larger organizations were associated with lower quality of Active Support.ConclusionsIn order to ensure that Active Support is consistently implemented, and thus, quality of life outcomes improved, organizations need to pay attention to both service design and support for staff through training and practice leadership.