People with developmental disabilities at high risk of preventable hospital safety incidents

People with developmental disabilities are almost three times as likely as other patients to suffer preventable physical injuries while in hospital, shows a new study from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Universitat de Barcelona.

The paper was published today (Monday, October 3) in the October issue of the journal health mattersexamines the prevalence of five preventable in-hospital patient safety incidents among adults with developmental disabilities in English NHS hospitals between April 2017 and March 2019.

Researchers considered cases of adverse drug reactions, hospital-acquired infections, pressure ulcers, postoperative deep vein thrombosis, and postoperative sepsis.

They found that these preventable hospital safety incidents increased the risk of death by up to 15 percent for adults with developmental disabilities.

Patients with chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome were particularly at risk, as they were 14.7 percent more likely to die from postoperative sepsis and 14.5 percent more likely to die from hospital-acquired infections than in patients without developmental disabilities.

Additionally, preventable patient safety incidents resulted in people with intellectual disabilities spending up to 15.4 more days in hospital compared to other patients.

dr Rocco Friebel, director of the Global Surgery Policy Unit at the LSE and lead author of the paper, said: “Our research shows that there is an ongoing disparity in the quality of care patients with developmental disabilities receive.

“We need an explicit national policy focus on the needs of these patients to ensure they receive the same care as others. Not only is this important to reduce inequalities in care, it will also free up NHS resources.

“While our research has not been able to identify the underlying factors that cause harm, more emphasis needs to be placed on how to effectively communicate with people with developmental disabilities, improve their primary care, and address delays in diagnosis and treatment.”

“The inclusion of a patient’s caregiver in the hospital care team could also be critical, as they are more likely to notice when a person’s health is deteriorating.”

The study also found that inpatients with developmental disabilities were, on average, 10 to 20 years younger than the general hospital population.

These results suggest that there are ongoing challenges in providing adequate services within the community that enable a person with a developmental disability to lead a healthy life.

While our findings support the UK Government’s current goal of moving care for patients with learning disabilities and autism from the hospital to the community in England – which could reduce the number of patients exposed to these patient safety deficiencies – it is clear that this is a significant one will require strengthening of existing community services.”

dr Laia Maynou, Lecturer Serra Hunter at the Universitat de Barcelona and co-author of the article

The study considered the experiences of patients from four groups of developmental disabilities: people with intellectual disabilities; chromosomal abnormalities; pervasive developmental disorders; and congenital malformation syndrome.