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Care staff attributions toward self-injurious behaviour exhibited by adults with intellectual disabilities

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Peter E. Langdon

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Shirley Reynolds

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Challenging behaviours may elicit negative emotional reactions and increase stress within care staff. The Leeds Attributional Coding System (LACS) was used to elicit spontaneous causal attributions of staff toward hypothetical clients with challenging behaviours. It was hypothesized that there would be relationships (1) between staff exposure to challenging behaviours and burnout, and (2) between staff cognitions and burnout. Using a cross-sectional correlational design, 41 care staff took part in a 10 minute interview about two vignettes depicting self-injurious behaviour. Staff also completed measures of demographic information and burnout. Participants made attributions toward self-injurious behaviour that were typically internal to the client, uncontrollable, unstable and specific.There was a significant association between number of clients cared for and emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. Staff who made fewer stable attributions had higher levels of burnout. There were no other relationships found between staff cognition and burnout. The LACS can be successfully employed in this context, and may have some benefits over other methods. Future research is required to explore the relationship between cognition and burnout.

Key Words: attribution theory • intellectual disability • Leeds Attributional Coding System • self-harm • staff burnout

Journal of Intellectual Disabilities, Vol. 11, No. 1, 47-63 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1744629507073998


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