Staff attributions about the causes of challenging behaviour in people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Aim: To determine how staff attribute challengingbehaviour in people with profound intellectual and multipledisabilities (PIMD), and analyse how staff attribution andworking experience are related. Method: 195 staff andpeople with PIMD participated. Staff filled out theChallenging Behaviour Attribution Scale (CHABA) toexplain challenging behaviour in one individual that theysupported. To determine which CHABA scale staffattributed the most challenging behaviour to, significantdifferences in mean scores between the five CHABA scaleswere analysed. The relationship between the five subscalesand the number of years of work experience was calculatedusing five Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Results: Themean score on the biomedical scale differed significantlyfrom the other four models. No significant correlationsbetween the number of years of work experience and themodels were found. Conclusions: Staff reported thebiomedical model as the most plausible explanation forchallenging behaviour in people with PIMD. However themean scores on all models are low. This might indicate thatstaff found none of the models particularly useful as possibleexplanations of challenging behaviour in people with PIMD