Behavioural interventions to treat anxiety in adults with autism and moderate to severe intellectual disabilities: The BEAMS-ID feasibility study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this feasibility study was to adapt and model a behavioural intervention for anxiety with autistic adults with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities. METHOD: Twenty-eight autistic adults with moderate or severe intellectual disabilities, 37 carers, and 40 therapists took part in this single-group non-randomised feasibility study designed to test intervention feasibility and acceptability, outcome measures, and research processes. RESULTS: The intervention was judged as feasible and acceptable by autistic adults with intellectual disabilities, carers, and therapists. Minor intervention revisions were suggested. Carers completed 100% of outcome measures and the missing data rate was low. Complying with legislation governing the inclusion of participants who lack capacity to decide whether they wanted to take part in this study led to an average 5-week enrolment delay. CONCLUSION: The intervention and associated study processes were judged to be feasible and acceptable and should now be tested within a larger randomised trial.

Burnout and secondary traumatic stress in staff working with people with intellectual disabilities: The role of adverse childhood experiences, resilience and trauma-informed organisational climate.

BACKGROUND: There has been extensive research into adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), however, less consideration has been given to the prevalence and impact of ACEs for staff working with people with intellectual disabilities. METHOD: Participants were staff employed by agencies that care for people with intellectual disabilities. An online survey collected demographic information and measures of ACEs, resilience, trauma-informed organisational climate, burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Correlation, regression, mediation and moderation analyses were used. RESULTS: 81.7% of 109 participants had experienced at least one ACE. Burnout, secondary traumatic stress and resilience were greater in the present study than in comparable samples. Trauma-informed organisational climate significantly predicted burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Resilience significantly predicted burnout. CONCLUSIONS: Staff working with people with intellectual disabilities are likely to have experienced ACEs. Working in a trauma-informed organisational climate and resilience may be effective avenues for reducing burnout and secondary traumatic stress.

'Them Two Things are What Collide Together': Understanding the Sexual Identity Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans People Labelled with Intellectual Disability.

BACKGROUND: Previous research aiming to understand the lives of lesbian, gay bisexual and trans (LGBT) people labelled with intellectual disabilities is limited. There are few recent studies and available findings are often contradictory and inconsistent. METHOD: This study aimed to explore how LGBT people labelled with intellectual disabilities experienced their sexual identities. Five LGBT people labelled with intellectual disabilities were interviewed, and data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology. RESULTS: Four superordinate themes represented the following: common experiences of bullying/abuse, understanding sexualities, other's responses to intellectual disabilities and sexualities, and navigating acceptance. CONCLUSIONS: Strategies for coping with abuse maintained participant's engagement in local communities. Sexuality was often problematized by others despite being generally accepted by participants. Coming out was a continual process of decision-making to facilitate safety and acceptance. To feel fully supported, participants desired holistic service provision sensitive to their sexuality and intellectual disability needs. Clinical and research implications are suggested.

Prevalence of adverse childhood experiences and associations with personal and professional factors in health and social care workers: A systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review papers reporting the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in health and social care workers, as well as any personal or professional factors they were associated with. METHOD: CINAHL, EMCARE, PsychInfo, and Medline were searched to find studies utilizing the ACE questionnaire (Felitti et al., 1998) in health and social care worker populations. RESULTS: The initial search returned 1,764 papers, with 17 studies meeting the inclusion criteria to be in the review. CONCLUSIONS: ACEs among health and social care workers were frequently reported and occurred more often than in the general population. They were also associated with several personal and professional outcomes, including poor physical and mental health, and workplace stress. Understanding staff ACE characteristics can help organizations to consider ways to support staff, which may be individual or systemic. Trauma-responsive systems may be a possible answer among organizations to improve staff well-being, quality of service, and better outcomes for service users. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Design of the Global Health chemical diversity library v2 for screening against infectious diseases.

There is a need for novel chemical matter for phenotypic and target-based screens to find starting points for drug discovery programmes in neglected infectious diseases and non-hormonal contraceptives that disproportionately affect Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). In some disease areas multiple screens of corporate and other libraries have been carried out, giving rise to some valuable starting points and leading to preclinical candidates. Whilst in other disease areas, little screening has been carried out. Much screening against pathogens has been conducted phenotypically as there are few robustly validated protein targets. However, many of the active compound series identified share the same molecular targets. To address the need for new chemical material, in this article we describe the design of a new library, designed for screening in drug discovery programmes for neglected infectious diseases. The compounds have been selected from the Enamine REAL (REadily AccessibLe) library, a virtual library which contains approximately 4.5 billion molecules. The molecules theoretically can be synthesized quickly using commercially available intermediates and building blocks. The vast majority of these have not been prepared before, so this is a source of novel compounds. In this paper we describe the design of a diverse library of 30,000 compounds from this collection (graphical abstract). The new library will be made available to laboratories working in neglected infectious diseases, subject to a review process. The project has been supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust (Wellcome).

Parents with learning disabilities: perceived incidence and needs.

Recent literature and government guidance has highlighted the rights of parents with leaming disabilities and role of services in meeting their needs. In the present study, three focus groups were conducted involving 35 members of community health visiting teams in order to identify estimated incidence and needs of parents with learning disabilities and the needs of services in supporting them. The health visiting teams identified clinically significant numbers of parents with learning disabilities and--through qualitative focus group discussion--suggested a significant need for intervention and support for these parents, greater resources and knowledge within health visiting services, and improved interagency co-ordination and communication.