Mental health promotion groups for people with intellectual disability
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A mixed methods feasibility study on the use of mental health promotion groups in people with intellectual disabilities
IRAS ID
94904
Contact name
Peter Woodward
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
People with intellectual disabilities are more likely to develop mental health problems. There is a lack of research into what mental health promotion interventions are appropriate for this client group. One method is the use of mental health promotion groups (Hardy, Woodward and Essen, 2004; Hardy et al., 2004; The Tuesday Group, 2004; Tuesday Group and Beat the Blues Group, 2009; Hardy et al., 2009) which are anecdotally well appraised by their members (Woodward, 2004) but have not been systematically or rigorously evaluated.
This study aims to test whether mental health promotion groups are a feasible intervention to improve positive mental well-being and reduce mental ill-health in people with intellectual disabilities and evaluate the methods used to conduct the groups. This will be conducted by taking pre and post measures prior to running mental health promotion groups and analysing this data using one-tailed paired t-tests to look for improvements in mental well-being, a reduction in symptoms of mental health problems and an increase in knowledge of mental health problems.
The pre and post measures will be conducted using a modified version of the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation – Outcome Measure, the Glasgow Anxiety Scale and The Glasgow Depression Scale. These tools have been adapted for people with intellectual disabilities and will measure psychological distress, mental wellbeing, symptoms and functioning. Semi-structured interviews with participants will also be conducted to give comprehensive exploration of the group experience as well as examining acceptability of the use of the mental health group with participants.
Participants in the study will be adults with intellectual disabilities who have, or are at risk of developing, mental health problems. Participants will be a convenience sample recruited from South East London. A power calculation has been undertaken and the number of participants that will be needed for this study is 37.REC name
London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0889
Date of REC Opinion
6 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion