An investigation of public awareness and knowledge of aphasia in the West of Ireland

An exploration of the coverage of aphasia in the Irish print media

“…In Ireland, approximately 30,000 people are living in the community with stroke-related conditions including aphasia (Irish Heart Foundation, 2013). A recent Irish study investigating public awareness and knowledge of aphasia in the west of Ireland (n =600) indicated 19.7% awareness with only 5.5% knowledge (Mc Menamin et al, 2020). Similar to the Swedish study and other studies (Vuković et al, 2017), the majority of participants identified the media as a primary source of aphasia information.…”

“…Investigations of public awareness and knowledge of aphasia have been conducted around the world including, for example, Canada (Patterson et al, 2015), USA (Simmons-Mackie et al, 2002), New Zealand (McCann et al, 2013, Australia (Simmons-Mackie et al, 2002), Sweden (Henriksson et al, 2019), Argentina, Croatia, Greece, Slovenia, and Norway (Code et al, 2016), Serbia and Montenegro (Vuković et al, 2017), the UK (Aphasia Alliance, 2008;Hill et al, 2018;Simmons-Mackie et al, 2002;Speakability, 2000), and Ireland (Mc Menamin et al, 2020) with many studies using the "Awareness of Aphasia Survey" (Code et al, 2001) (e.g., Code et al, 2016;Hill et al, 2018;Mc Menamin et al, 2020;Patterson et al, 2015;Simmons-Mackie et al, 2002) to capture data about public awareness and knowledge of aphasia. In these studies, awareness of aphasia was defined as "having heard the word aphasia" while knowledge was defined as identifying or providing "basic information about aphasia" e.g., aphasia involves speech, language and/or communication problems, etc.…”

“…Many researchers have examined variables such as gender, age, occupation, source of aphasia information and aphasia awareness compared to awareness of other conditions, e.g., dyslexia, etc. (e.g., Code et al, 2016;Hill et al, 2018;Mc Menamin et al, 2020;Patterson et al, 2015;Simmons-Mackie et al, 2002;Vuković et al, 2017). Hill et al (2018) identified some factors that appear to positively influence aphasia awareness and knowledge, i.e., being female, an older person, and working in a profession such as education and/or health care.…”

“…Increasing public awareness is essential to promote understanding and social inclusion for people with aphasia and to encourage investment in service provision and aphasia research (Code et al, 2016;Vuković et al, 2017). Many studies recommend (e.g., Henriksson et al, 2019;Mc Menamin et al, 2020;Vuković et al, 2017) that the media should contribute to increasing public awareness and knowledge of aphasia. Participants surveyed across countries appear to consistently report various forms of media (print, television, radio, and social media/internet) as a source of aphasia information (Code et al, 2016;Henriksson et al, 2019;Hill et al, 2018;Simmons-Mackie et al, 2002).…”

“…In a study comparing public awareness of aphasia to Parkinson's disease in New Zealand, findings indicated public awareness of aphasia was 11% while awareness of Parkinson's disease was 96% (McCann et al, 2013) despite the higher incidence and prevalence of aphasia in the population group. Public awareness of other conditions such as dyslexia, stammering, and stroke also appears to be significantly higher than awareness of aphasia (Code et al, 2001;Hill et al, 2018;Mc Menamin et al, 2020) which is interesting since stroke is the primary cause of aphasia and one in three people who have a stroke will experience aphasia (Chapey et al, 2008).…”