Psychosocial experiences of chronic illness in individuals with an intellectual disability: A systematic review of the literature

This is an author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in the Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and appeared online on 7/1/2015© 2015Background: Increased life expectancy has led to an increase in diagnoses of chronic illness in people with an intellectual disability; despite this increase, research about the psychological impact is rare. This review explored the psychosocial experiences of chronic illness in adults with an intellectual disability, revealing potential predictors and moderators of these experiences. Methods: Online databases were systematically searched to identify relevant literature, using predefined inclusion criteria. Of the 25,058 titles initially identified, 4 were included, that is, those collecting data on people with an intellectual disability and diagnosed with cancer (n = 2), chronic pain (n = 1) and diabetes (n = 1). Results: Narrative synthesis of the data identified six themes, namely, delayed diagnosis, information, communication and understanding, negative psychological consequences, negative physical consequences, social perception and social support. Conclusions: There are unmet needs within this population, including a lack of assistance in understanding their illness. A substantial gap in the literature should be addressed through further empirical work

Implicit knowledge and memory for musical stimuli in musicians and non-musicians.

The phoneme monitoring task used by Bigand, Tillmann, Poulin, D’Adamo and Madurell (2001) is a musical priming paradigm that demonstrates that both musicians and non-musicians have gained implicit understanding of prevalent harmonic structures. Little research has focused on implicit music learning in musicians and non-musicians. This current study aimed to investigate whether the phoneme monitoring task would identify any implicit memory differences between musicians and non-musicians. It focuses on both implicit knowledge of musical structure and implicit memory for specific musical sequences. Thirty-two musicians and non-musicians (19 female and 13 male) were asked to listen to a seven-chord sequence and decide as quickly as possible whether the final chord ended on the syllable /di/ or /du/. Overall, musicians were faster at the task, though non-musicians made more gains through the blocks of trials. Implicit memory for musical sequence was evident in both musicians and non-musicians. Both groups of participants reacted quicker to sequences that they had heard more than once but showed no explicit knowledge of the familiar sequences

Caring for cancer patients with an intellectual disability: Attitudes and care perceptions of UK oncology nurses

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in European Journal of Oncology Nursing. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in European Journal of Oncology Nursing, vol. 19, issue 5 (2015) 10.1016/j.ejon.2015.03.002Background: Caring for people with cancer or an intellectual disability (ID) is stressful: little is known about the combined impact of caring for cancer patients with an ID, though this is expected to be especially challenging. Method: Eighty-three nurses, working in oncology or a related field (i.e. palliative care) were recruited. Perceptions of caring for patients with and without an ID were measured, alongside potentially confounding information about participant demographic characteristics and perceived stress. Results: Participants felt less comfortable communicating with patients with an ID about their illness (F(1,82) = 59.52, p <0.001), more reliant on a caregiver for communication (F(1,82) = 26.29, p < 0.001), and less confident that the patient's needs would be identified (F(1,82) = 42.03, p < 0.001) and met (F(1,81) = 62.90, p < 0.001). Participants also believed that caring for this patient group would induce more stress, compared with patients without an ID (F(1,81) = 31.592, p < 0.001). Previous experience working with ID patient groups appears to mitigate some perceptions about providing care to this population. Conclusions: Caring for cancer patients with an ID may intensify this, already difficult, role. Through training and knowledge exchange, oncology nurse's confidence in communication, providing appropriate care, and positivity towards this patient group may be improved

Health professionals' and service users' interpretation of screening test results: experimental study

Objective To investigate the accuracy of interpretation of probabilistic screening information by different stakeholder groups and whether presentation as frequencies improves accuracy. Design Between participants experimental design; participants responded to screening information embedded in a scenario. Setting Regional maternity service and national conferences and training days. Participants 43 pregnant women attending their first antenatal appointment in a regional maternity service; 40 companions accompanying the women to their appointments; 42 midwives; 41 obstetricians. Participation rates were 56%, 48%, 89%, and 71% respectively. Measures Participants estimated the probability that a positive screening test result meant that a baby actually had Down's syndrome on the basis of all the relevant information, which was presented in a scenario. They were randomly assigned to scenarios that presented the information in percentage (n = 86) or frequency (n = 83) format. They also gave basic demographic information and rated their confidence in their estimate. Results Most responses (86%) were incorrect. Obstetricians gave significantly more correct answers (although still only 43%) than either midwives (0%) or pregnant women (9%). Overall, the proportion of correct answers was higher for presentation as frequencies (24%) than for presentation as percentages (6%), but further analysis showed that this difference occurred only in responses from obstetricians. Many health professionals were confident in their incorrect responses. Conclusions Most stakeholders in pregnancy screening draw incorrect inferences from probabilistic information, and health professionals need to be aware of the difficulties that both they and their patients have with such information. Moreover, they should be aware that different people make different mistakes and that ways of conveying information that help some people will not help others

The role of relationship attachment in psychological adjustment to cancer in patients and caregivers:A systematic review of the literature

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: The role of relationship attachment in psychological adjustment to cancer in patients and caregivers: A systematic review of the literature. Psycho-Oncology, 2014, 23(10), pp. 1083-1095, which has been published in final form at http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/pon.3664. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.The objective of this works is to report the results of a systematic review to evaluate the role of attachment in adjustment to cancer for patients and those close to them

Exploring health visiting professionals' evaluations of early parent-infant interactions.

From PubMed via Jisc Publications RouterPublication status: aheadofprint: To examine the accuracy of Health Visitors (HVs) evaluations of the quality of parent-infant interactions. : HVs have been identified as key professionals in the early identification of difficulties in parent-infant interactions. : A sample of 56 HVs, 4 Family Health Nurses (FHNs) and 14 Community Nursery Nurses (CNNs) recruited from two National Health Service (NHS) Trusts, viewed video footage of six early parent-infant interactions which had been categorised as 'sensitive', 'mixed', and 'problematic' using the CARE-Index. Participants evaluated the quality of the parent-infant interactions shown in these videos using the Parent-Infant Interaction Rating Questionnaire (PIIRQ). : On average, participants correctly rated the problematic videos as lowest in quality, the mixed as higher in quality than the problematic videos, and the sensitive videos as highest in quality. Interestingly, within the problematic category participants rated the 'unresponsive' pattern of interaction as significantly lower in quality than the 'controlling' interaction. : Findings suggest participants were relatively accurate in their evaluations of parent-infant interactions. However, they indicate that participants were more likely to be concerned about unresponsive, as opposed to controlling, interactive behaviours. Recommendations for further research include exploration of potential differences in how health-visiting professionals evaluate particular patterns of parent-infant interactions