The impact of training on the knowledge of health and social care staff working in learning disability services

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.