Abstract
The thesis examines the level of knowledge of health and social care staff, working in
learning disability services in the following areas: knowledge of what a learning
disability is; the definition of challenging behaviour and factors important in its
management; duty of care to clients and how this would be applied to scenarios that
are typical of those encountered in daily work and the health care needs of people
with a
learning disability. Overall, the study found that levels of knowledge were
relatively low in all areas examined. The second part ofthe thesis examined the
impact of a one day course on levels of staff knowledge (n = 59) as compared with a
control group who did not receive training. It was found that training led to a
significant increase in knowledge in the trained group on all factors but one. This was
the identification of the main factors important in responding to challenging
behaviour. In relation to this, staff appeared to identify only those factors which
would seem to be most relevant in their daily work eg health staff identifying
psychological approaches, day care and residential staff identifying reactive strategies.
Gains in knowledge were found to be similar in those groups followed up
immediately, 3-6 and 6-12 months after training. No significant differences in scores
between baseline and follow-up were found for the group who had not received
training.
