[Adults with Intellectual Disability and Mental Disorder Respectively Challenging Behaviour: System-Related...

A large interview study, evolved from the clinical research project SYMPA-ID (Systemic Methods in Acute Psychiatry for People with Intellectual Disability), focused on adults with cognitive impairment and mental disorder who lived in a residential home and were in need of intensive psychiatric treatment. With the objective of analysing the interactions between the patients and their carers as well as the cooperations within the multi-carer system, both patients with mild to severe ID and their carers (relatives, legal guardians, professional carers of residential group homes as well as in- and outpatient psychiatric services) were surveyed several times between 2015 and 2018. Qualitative Data Analysis of 188 interviews with 67 participants resulted in a collection of 43 strategies concerning both attitudes and activities to prevent or cope with aggressive incidents. The results reached high interrater-reliability. Many of the strategies can be linked to systemic theory and practice and underline the importance of a (multi-)systemic approach. The tool-box was called SMILE: Systemic-inspired Methods for the Interaction and SoLution of Escalative Patterns.