Short-term PsychoEducation for Carers To Reduce Over Medication of people with intellectual disabilities (SPECTROM): study protocol

Introduction Psychotropic medications that are primarily licenced for the treatment of psychiatric disorders are used widely (32%–85%) among people with intellectual disabilities (ID) often for the management of problem (challenging) behaviour in the absence of a psychiatric disorder. Care staff play a pivotal role in the prescribing process. Currently, no staff training programme exists to address the issue of overprescribing of psychotropic medication in people with ID, thus highlighting an urgent need for developing a psychoeducational programme (PEP) specifically designed to address this issue. We propose to develop a PEP for care staff using the methodology described in the UK Medical Research Council guide for complex interventions.
Methods and analysis The development of the PEP will involve (1) gathering information on available relevant training programmes, (2) running four focus groups with care staff and other professionals to establish the content and format of the PEP, and (3) organising a co-design event involving all relevant stakeholders to discuss the format of the PEP. A core project team will develop the PEP under guidance from the PEP Development Group which will consist of 10–12 relevant stakeholder representatives. Feedback from selected stakeholders on a draft PEP will allow us to refine the PEP before implementation. The PEP will have web-based modules supplemented by face to face training sessions. When the final draft is ready, we will field test the PEP on six to eight care staff from community care homes for people with ID. After completing the field test, we will run a focus group involving participants in the PEP to get feedback on the PEP.
Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval for this study was waived by the UK Health Regulatory Authority as the study does not collect any patient related information and only include care staff outside the UK NHS. This will be the first ever such universally freely available PEP supported by training manual and slides.

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