General practitioners' educational needs in intellectual disability health.
Victorian GPs feel least prepared and most want training in managing behavioural and sexuality issues for patients with intellectual disability.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team mailed a short survey to every family doctor in Victoria, Australia. Two hundred fifty-two GPs wrote back.
The survey asked: 'Which parts of intellectual-disability care do you feel least ready to handle?' and 'Which topics would you like training in?'
What they found
Doctors put two areas at the top of both lists: behaviour problems and anything to do with sex or relationships.
Cancer screening, epilepsy, and heart care ranked lower for training interest.
How this fits with other research
Geckeler et al. (2000) asked the same doctors the same questions four years earlier. The 2004 paper shows the gap never closed; GPs still feel under-prepared.
Fox et al. (2001) surveyed direct-care staff and got the same result: half wanted more help with sexuality issues. The problem crosses job titles.
Dai et al. (2023) extended the work to U.S. outpatient clinics. Most doctors still skip talking to the patient and speak only to the caregiver—proof the training gap persists worldwide.
Why it matters
If family doctors avoid behaviour and sex topics, clients miss early help and you get the crisis call. Use the GP list when you build trainings: offer short lunch-and-learn sessions on positive-behaviour supports and consent education. Handouts the doctor can tape to the clinic wall beat a thick manual every time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The community general practitioner (GP) has a central role in the provision of primary health care to people with intellectual disability (ID) as an indirect result of deinstitutionalization in Australia. This population, however, continues to experience poor health care compared to the general population. The current paper describes results from a questionnaire that aimed to identify the perceptions of practising GPs on the standards of health care for people with ID, the adequacy of prior training, and their interest in further education in relation to nine health care areas. METHOD: A questionnaire was posted to a selective sample of 1272 practising GPs in Victoria selected from a database from the Centre for Developmental Disability Health Victoria and the Victorian Medical Directory of GPs registered with the Australian Medical Association. Data were available for 252 respondents with a response rate of 28.5%. RESULTS: The health areas in which many GPs reported to be inadequately trained were the same as those areas that were perceived as being of a poor standard. These areas were behavioural or psychiatric conditions, human relations and sexuality issues, complex medical problems, and preventative and primary health care. Ninety four per cent of respondents were interested in further education in at least one of the nine health care areas, with the most frequently nominated areas being behavioural or psychiatric conditions, syndrome-specific medical problems, human relations and sexuality issues and collaboration with government services. General practitioners did not nominate complex medical problems or preventative and primary health care for further education as frequently as they identified care in these areas to be substandard and their prior training inadequate. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from the current research are discussed in relation to the implications for development of educational programmes based on learning needs identified by the GP. The most frequently nominated health care areas in all three questions were behavioural or psychiatric conditions and human relations and sexuality issues. Reasons for incongruence between the frequency of responses for complex medical problems and preventative and primary health care are explored.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2004 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2004.00503.x