Edinburgh Napier University

  Management of safe swallowing for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) is critical in reducing aspiration (swallowing) pneumonia, a leading cause of death. People with ID often depend on carers without a registered health qualification (family or support workers) who lack the skills/knowledge to identify and manage aspiration risks. Health professionals have developed an intervention entitled SONKS (Swallowing, Oral Health, and Nutrition Knowledge and Skills).

SONKS is an evidence-based education programme that focuses on enabling carers to manage eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties in people with ID.SONKS is an established programme that was developed by specialist practitioners in NHS Forth Valley (FV) in Central Scotland.

This programme has potential to address this research and practice gap, but it needs tested for effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility for use in wider settings and geographical locations.
Whilst practitioner and NHS FV generated data suggests SONKS has potential as a future educational intervention, a large scale, robust and more comprehensive study is required to assess the effectiveness and acceptability of SONKS in diverse settings and with a wider range of carer participants. We propose to undertake a two-phase study to test the SONKS programme to ensure that is acceptable and useable in a range of settings (health/social/third sector) and regions