The provision of aids and adaptations, risk assessments, and incident reporting and recording procedures in relation to injury prevention for adults with intellectual disabilities: cohort study.
Basic burn-safety aids and carer training are still missing in one-quarter of UK homes for adults with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked carers about safety aids in the homes of adults with intellectual disability. They also asked if carers had training in risk assessment.
The survey took place in a well-resourced part of the United Kingdom. It was a snapshot, not a trial.
What they found
Eight out of ten adults had some safety equipment. Yet one in four still lacked basic burn-prevention items like kettle bases or stove guards.
One in four paid carers said they had never received risk-assessment training.
How this fits with other research
Hithersay et al. (2014) looked at every carer-led health program for adults with ID and found none that work. Our study shows why: carers themselves lack training.
Osuna et al. (2025) moved the safety lens online. They found carers also lack digital-risk training. Together the papers map the same training gap across two domains—burns and scams.
Nevin et al. (2005) asked practice nurses about serving adults with ID. Nurses felt willing but untrained. The new data say the same gap now hits home carers. The story spans two decades and two workforces.
Why it matters
You can close a clear gap next week. Add a five-item burn-safety checklist to every home visit. Train carers to use it. The equipment is cheap; the training takes 15 minutes. Start there and you remove a known injury risk that has sat untouched for years.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Adults with intellectual disabilities (IDs) experience a higher incidence of injury, compared with the general population. The aim of this study was to investigate the provision of aids and adaptations, residential service providers' individual risk assessments and training in these, and injury incident recording and reporting procedures, in relation to injury prevention. METHOD: Interviews were conducted with a community-based cohort of adults with IDs (n = 511) who live in Greater Glasgow, Scotland, UK and their key carer (n = 446). They were asked about their aids and adaptations at home, and paid carers (n = 228) were asked about individual risk assessments, their training, and incident recording and reporting procedures. RESULTS: Four hundred and twelve (80.6%) of the adults with IDs had at least one aid or adaptation at home to help prevent injury. However, a proportion who might benefit, were not in receipt of them, and surprisingly few had temperature controlled hot water or a bath thermometer in place to help prevent burns/scalds, or kitchen safety equipment to prevent burns/scalds from electric kettles or irons. Fifty-four (23.7%) of the paid carers were not aware of the adult they supported having had any risk assessments, and only 142 (57.9%) had received any training on risk assessments. Considerable variation in incident recording and reporting procedures was evident. CONCLUSION: More work is needed to better understand, and more fully incorporate, best practice injury prevention measures into routine support planning for adults with IDs within a positive risk-taking and risk reduction framework.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2015 · doi:10.1111/jir.12154