A Systematic Review of Mental Health Focused Training Programs for Direct Support Professionals Working with Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

Background

Direct Support Professionals (DSP) work closely with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) and can play an important role in helping these individuals get treatment when they are also experiencing mental health concerns (MHC).

Methods

We employed a systematic review search techniques to identify 15 empirical articles that assessed the outcomes of training programs for DSP that addressed aspects of mental health among individuals with I/DD.

Results

There was a wide diversity in the trainings, including both staff and individuals with I/DD focused trainings, workshop formats and intervention formats, and trainings varying in length. Each article found benefits of the training improved knowledge and confidence for the DSP and/or decreased mental health issue symptoms or behaviors for individuals with I/DD.

Conclusion

The research reviewed contained various strengths in methodology including mixed methods designs and long follow-up periods; however, there were also pervasive limitations that reflect a need for the field as a whole to devote a more concentrated and collaborative effort to providing high-quality training on the mental health aspects of individuals with I/DD for DSP.

KEYWORDS:

• Direct support professionals
• intellectual and developmental disabilities
• mental health concerns
• training
• program evaluation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ While there are a number of terms used to describe DSP (e.g., frontline staff, care staff, etc.), we define DSP, and thus included any studies, where the training was applicable to employed staff who were caring for individuals with I/DD and who were not required to have any specific degree or certification (e.g., nurses were excluded).

² We note that there is a great deal of variety in the terms used to the describe intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), particularly when we integrate research spanning several decades and a number of countries. In particular, we note that articles up until approximately 2005 used now outdated language such as “mental retardation.” Further, a number of studies from European countries use “learning disabilities” (LD) when it is clear that the authors are referring to I/DD opposed to commonly used language to describe learning difficulties with math and reading (which is the context that learning disabilities is often used in the United States). While we consistently use I/DD throughout our manuscript and when talking about any overall trends observed from the reviewed research, when citing and describing a specific study, we adopt the language used by the study we are describing.

³ Whenever there was an article that was not clear as to whether it should be included or excluded, the first author discussed it with the second author before making a decision.

⁴ Trainings that were referenced by the studies we reviewed are included in the reference list and denoted with a double asterisk.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the MHIDD Utah Training Initiative [90DDTI0046-02-01].