Pain in people with intellectual disability and limited communication is often not recognised and, in turn, left untreated. Several projects have been conducted to address this issue.
The aim of the Keeping Pain in Check project was to determine if a checklist, the Non - Communicating Adult Pain Checklist (NCAPC), helped disability support workers to identify pain in people with intellectual disability and limited communication. Another aim was to develop and trial an online training course for disability staff and evaluate whether it improved knowledge about pain in this group of people.
The majority of disability staff reported that the online training helped improve their knowledge about pain, and their confidence in identifying pain. The research also found that there were many differences in behaviours observed when the person with intellectual disability was reported to be in pain compared to when they were content using NCAPC.
A summary of the research is available here.
The project was funded by the Winifred and John Webster Charitable Trust (as managed by the Perpetual Trustees).
An earlier project explored the experiences of pain in adults with severe or profound ID, and evaluated the impact of a face-to-face education session on support workere'beliefs, knowledge and confidence in identifying and responding to pain in this group of people. The project also trialled two behavioural checklists (The Abbey Pain Scale and the DisDAT) to determine whether they could be used to identify pain.
A summary of the research is available here.
This research was funded by the Estate of Kenneth Albert Short.
For more information about the research, please contact the research team at [email protected].