An evaluation of a multidisciplinary care planning tool for people with intellectual disabilities and behaviours of concern

Background: Multidisciplinary care planning for people with intellectual disabilities who engage in behaviours of concern (BoC) is challenging and complex. Effective collaborative understanding and action planning across all stakeholders is essential. Cornwall's Adult Community Learning Disability Team developed a care planning tool (Connect Behaviour) using contemporary evidence and best practice. Connect Behaviour is designed to facilitate care planning by collaborative and enhanced shared understanding and is also available as an interactive web-based tool.

Aim: To evaluate Connect behaviour using stakeholders' experiences.

Methods: Family members, care providers, advocates, social workers and professionals who had attended meetings guided by the Connect Behaviour care planning tool in a 3-month period were interviewed about their experiences of those meetings. This was interpreted using inductive thematic analysis.

Results: Of 71 individuals identified as meeting this criterion of inclusion 61 were contactable and 27 consented to participation. These participants consisted of 17 health professionals, two parents, two social workers, three advocates, two positive behaviour support advisors within care providers, and one manager of a local care provider. The thematic analysis of participant views of connect behaviour generated five superordinate themes of 'pragmatic', 'enabling', 'validation of effort', 'perceived lack of flexibility' and 'areas for development'. Further inquiry of themes highlighted subthemes of Connect Behaviour being 'sensible', 'practical', 'collaborative', 'holistic' and 'action'. Conversely, some perceived a lack of flexibility in the care planning tool. Future areas for development were also identified in the data. Changes were recommended to increase the tool accessibility for people with intellectual disabilities, support stakeholders understanding of the tool, and consider utility for other clinical scenarios.

Conclusions: The evaluation established general feedback to continue to use the Connect Behaviour as a care planning tool. The benefits of Connect Behaviour in comparison to other care planning frameworks needs to be understood.