RCT of an Intervention to Improve the Health of Adolescents with Intellectual Disability. [ 2006 - 2011 ]

Research Grant

Researchers: Prof Nicholas Lennox (Principal investigator) ,  A/Pr Michael O'Callaghan ,  Dr Chris Bain ,  Dr Suzanne Carrington ,  Prof Gail Williams

Brief description A high number of people with intellectual disability die at a younger age than the general population - 5 to 20 years younger. The standard of their health is low compared with others. They experience high levels of unrecognised disease and do not receive health promotion or health screening. As they comprise 2.7% of our population (502,000 Australians) - this situation is unjust and should be rectified. The barriers to good health for them include communication difficulties, impaired recall of significant health information, negative social attitudes and inadequate training about disability for health service providers. This project is an attempt to minimise some of these barriers by examining the use of a Health Intervention Package. We want to give young people with intellectual disabilty the chance of similar health standards to the rest of the population. This package includes a comprehensive health review, a diary for collecting and storing health information, and advocacy training. We specifically want to examine if adolescents with intellectual disabilty using this package will receive better healthcare and improved health outcomes. We envisage that if successful, the intervention will establish good health practices for the rest of the young person's life. This group of young people is particularly at risk as they move from care provided by specialist paediatricians to accessing General Practitioners' services. To achieve this, the study will seek to recruit 1000 young people (and their parents and teachers) in Special Schools in Queensland. We have already shown that the comprehensive health review does improve health outcomes adults with intellectual disabilty, and the health information and advocacy training has received very positive evaluation. We now need to investigate the effect of both these processes in adolscence and establish if evidence exists to support wider implementation throughout the sector.

Funding Amount $AUD 803,146.25

Funding Scheme NHMRC Project Grants

Notes Standard Project Grant