Longitudinal determinants of mental wellbeing amongst people with intellectual disabilities: risk, protective and compensatory factors

PhD Student: Sara Waters Sobral; Partner: The Challenging Behaviour Foundation; Supervisors: Dr. Paul Thompson, Prof. Kylie Gray and Prof. Peter Langdon; Health Services Management Centre

Family embracing outside

Over 1.2 million people in England have intellectual disabilities, and they die, on average, 16 years earlier than the general population. Improvements to community-based health and social care to reduce the number of people with intellectual disabilities in psychiatric hospitals have not been successful. A greater understanding and exploration of the specific needs of people with intellectual disabilities is needed to help inform effective service development, and to subsequently ensure they “live happier, healthier, longer lives”.

The project aims to identify the longitudinal risk, protective and compensatory factors determining the mental wellbeing of people with intellectual disabilities by conducting three studies:

  1. A scoping review focusing on identifying longitudinal trends in mental wellbeing and mental health in people with intellectual disabilities.
  2. Longitudinal growth modelling assessing a range of candidate predictive risk, compensatory, and/or protective factors from the individual-level NHS Digital Mental Health Services Data. Factors will be discussed with our partner organisation, the Challenging Behaviour Foundation (CBF) staff and our Person and Public Involvement groups to consider their importance through the lens of lived experience experts.
  3. Similar methods will be used with the existing Understanding Society dataset, and with focus on the general population of people with intellectual disabilities rather than in those placed in psychiatric inpatient care.

We aim to develop a greater understanding of the longitudinal determinants of mental wellbeing for people with intellectual disabilities. Our findings will inform government policy, help shape service design and delivery, and assist our charity partners with effective evidence-based lobbying to improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities and their families.