Effect of training on attitudes and expertise of optometrists towards people with intellectual disabilities

Purpose: To determine whether participation in an educational programme, which comprised both lectures and supervised patient contacts, did more to improve the attitudes, expertise, knowledge and confidence of optometrists and student optometrists towards people with intellectual disabilities (ID) compared with receiving didactic lectures only. Methods: Optometrists and student optometrists were invited to take part in vision screening. A series of lectures were provided followed by supervised practice for a minimum of 2 days. A questionnaire was administered before the commencement of the training, and afterwards, in order to assess the impact of the training. The results were compared with a group of control subjects who received similar lectures without the clinical experience. Results: For both groups there were statistically significant improvements in self-reported knowledge of ophthalmic complications of ID, confidence in working with people with ID, and there was a significantly reduced perceived need for further training after the courses. There was a significantly better result for the group experiencing patient contact particularly in respect of self-reported attitudes towards people with ID. Confidence in dealing with people with ID was related to the number of such patients seen over the last year. Conclusions: Training incorporating clinical experience, and using real patients, is particularly effective, although there is still benefit in providing lecture type courses. It is recommended that, whenever possible, courses are provided that offer hands-on experience with real patients. There is a need for further research using validated attitudinal scales to investigate the attitudes of optometrists to people with ID.