Health and social care staff responses to working with people with a learning disability who display sexual offending type behaviours

This study found that 59% of social care staff were currently supporting a client with a learning disability who had offended or displayed an offending type behaviour. The range of behaviours was similar to that displayed by clients in a secure health facility and included rape, sexual assault and exposure. Only 22.9% of social care staff had received training in this area, while none of the health stuff had. Both groups expressed low levels of confidence in supporting this client group. The areas of difficulty were common to both groups and included personal attitudes and attitudes of others to the behaviour, and concern over risk, responsibility and safety. In respect of attitudes, social care staff were found to be significantly more likely to hold negative attitudes towards the person's behaviour, while health staff were significantly more likely to feel negatively towards the person. Health staff were significantly more likely to identify training as a means of further support, while social care staff identified professional input. Both groups identified the need for theoretical training about working with this client group. Despite this no significant differences were found between those who had and had not received training and confidence, attitudes and the need for further support

Health locus of control and value for health as predictors of dietary behaviour

Measures of health locus of control, value for health and frequency of consumption of a variety of food items were measured in a representative population of 13,045 respondents. Consumption of healthier foods was greatest amongst respondents with higher internal locus of control and value for health scores, while consumption of less healthy food items was higher amongst those with low value for health and high chance locus of control scores. Interactions between health locus of control dimensions and value for health added little to the variance of frequency of food consumption explained. The implications of these results for explanatory models of dietary behaviour and for future research are discussed