ICONIC Programme

ICONIC is a 5 year National Institute of Health Research funded research programme, which is being coordinated at the Unit for Adult Mental Health and Wellbeing, Queen Mary University of London and sponsored by East London NHS Foundation Trust.

The programme aims to improve quality of life (QoL) and behaviour that challenges in people with mild to moderate learning disability, through using person-centred solution focused communication.

Learning disability (LD) affects 2% of the population

People with learning disability experience inequalities which may impact QoL

Behaviour that challenges occur in 18% of people with LD in the community

DIALOG+ is an evidence based, face-to-face intervention delivered by health professionals using a tablet, which structures routine care sessions to ensure that care planning is personalised, holistic and co-produced.

DIALOG+ involves collaboratively completing the DIALOG quality-of-life scale and then using those ratings to have a solution focused discussion in order to set actions and improve service user satisfaction. Studies have found that it can enhance the communication between service users and those who support them, and can improve quality of life in people with mental health problems, but it has not been used in people with learning disabilities.

We want to make DIALOG+ accessible and suitable for people with learning disability and to use it to help individuals think about things in their life they want to improve (e.g. leisure activities, accommodation) by using resources available to them or their carers.

Our aim is to test if it improves quality of life and behaviour.