None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The communication difficulties associated with aphasia can create a significant barrier to the involvement of people with stroke in healthcare decisions. Our research team has previously demonstrated that people with aphasia can train health professionals to effectively communicate with individuals with aphasia. The current project will extend this research by investigating the effectiveness of delivering the training over the internet to cater for rural clinicians. The project will be a pre-post intervention study with random allocation of health professionals to groups (internet vs. face-to-face). During the study, 60 health professionals will attend a training session where they learn and implement strategies for communicating with people with aphasia (via a 1 hour lecture on communication techniques and then a 15 minute conversation with a person with aphasia). The health professionals will be randomly allocated to either training using the traditional face-to-face format, or training over the internet. The proposed project will provide valuable evidence about whether communication partner training programs for health professionals involving people with aphasia can be delivered over the internet, and will be used as pilot data for a multisite RCT. It is anticipated that the program has the potential to increase the participation of people with aphasia in healthcare decisions.
Interventions
Health professionals from a variety of disciplines will be randomly allocated to groups (internet vs. face-to-face). All health professionals will attend an initial assessment session, a training session, and then a follow-up session. The initial assessment sessions will be held up to one week before the training session, while the follow-up session will occur approximately one week later. At the initial and follow-up assessment sessions, the health professionals will complete survey measures ab
Health professionals from a variety of disciplines will be randomly allocated to groups (internet vs. face-to-face). All health professionals will attend an initial assessment session, a training session, and then a follow-up session. The initial assessment sessions will be held up to one week before the training session, while the follow-up session will occur approximately one week later. At the initial and follow-up assessment sessions, the health professionals will complete survey measures about their confidence when interacting with people with aphasia and knowledge about communication strategies. During the training session the health professionals will learn and implement communication strategies via a single 1 hour lecture by a speech pathologist and then a 15 minute conversation with a person with aphasia followed by feedback. The conversations will involve 1-2 health professionals paired with 1-2 people with aphasia in a small group format. The internet group will receive the training over the internet (this will involve watching a pre-recorded version of the training session online and then having a real-time conversation in a small group format with a person with aphasia (via Skype or a similar program) to practically implement the strategies. A register of attendance will be kept to monitor adherence to the intervention.
Sponsors
Emma Finch
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Participants will be Health professionals from a variety of allied health disciplines employed at the Princess Alexandra (PA) Hospital (Brisbane, Queensland). The people with aphasia will be currently attending an outpatient communication group at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. The people with aphasia will all be diagnosed with aphasia by a speech pathologist prior to their inclusion in the study and will not have any other neurological or developmental conditions.
Exclusion criteria
Health professionals - inadequate English skills to consent and participate in the program; history of neurological conditions. People with aphasia - inadequate English skills to consent and participate in the program; history of other neurological or developmental conditions
Outcome results
None listed