Development of a Training Program to Increase Student Clinician Competency when Communicating with People with Aphasia

Abstract

The Washington University in St. Louis Stroke Clinic is a student-run free clinic (SRSC) designed to enhance student learning and provide the community with no-cost evidence-based occupational therapy services. Aphasia is a common communication impairment after stroke that affects the ability to access services and give and get information, and impacts life participation and satisfaction. Conversation partner training is an evidence-based treatment approach to improve communication with people with aphasia (PWA). The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of student clinician training about communicating with PWA using conversation partner training in the SRSC. This study was a single-group prospective pre-post cohort study with two phases. In Phase 1, eight students completed a series of formal and informal feedback measures to evaluate student perception of the current training. In Phase 2, six students completed a conversation partner education protocol with a flipped classroom model and includes selfevaluation and evaluation of competency with a skills check-out. Student clinicians reported increased knowledge, skills, and confidence in their ability to communicate with PWA. Students demonstrated increased skill in acknowledging and revealing the competence, building rapport, as well as giving and receiving valuable information. This was the first study looking solely at the value of student occupational therapy education on communicating with PWA. Through this experience, these students were better prepared to interact with future clients with aphasia.

A pilot randomized controlled trial comparing online versus face‐to‐face delivery of an aphasia communication partner training program for student healthcare professionals

“…2017). Finally, one of the most recent studies has explored the impacts of a self‐directed learning (including an SCA‐specific online module) combined with face‐to‐face (F2F) components (including role plays) with six occupational therapy student healthcare professionals (Doherty and Lay 2019). Increases were noted in the raw data for students’ knowledge, skills and confidence in their ability to communicate with people with aphasia.…”

Efficacy of online communication partner training package for student healthcare professionals

“…CPT can improve skills related to knowledge of aphasia; knowledge of communication strategies; and confidence in interacting with people with aphasia when delivered face to face for speech pathology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and medical students (Cameron et al, 2015;Finch et al, 2018;Legg et al, 2005). A smaller number of studies have demonstrated that knowledge, confidence and possibly skills can improve after a combination of face to face and telehealth aphasia CPT for speech pathology students (Finch et al, 2020) or face to face and online flipped learning approaches for occupational therapy students (Doherty & Lay, 2019). Further, Power et al (2020) found that for 30 occupational therapy students, there was no significant difference between face-to-face didactic and self-directed online learning CPT delivery modes in increasing knowledge of aphasia; knowledge of communication strategies, and confidence in interacting with people with aphasia.…”

“…While the majority of aphasia CPT research has been conducted with qualified health professionals, there is a developing evidence base for the benefits of providing aphasia CPT to student health professionals from a variety of disciplines and in a range of delivery formats (Cameron et al., 2015 ; Doherty & Lay, 2019 ; Finch et al., 2018 , 2020 ; Legg et al., 2005 ; Power et al., 2020 ). CPT can improve skills related to knowledge of aphasia; knowledge of communication strategies; and confidence in interacting with people with aphasia when delivered face to face for speech pathology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and medical students (Cameron et al., 2015 ; Finch et al., 2018 ; Legg et al., 2005 ).…”

Psychometric properties of the Health Professionals and Aphasia Questionnaire (HPAQ): a new self-assessment tool for evaluating health communication with people with aphasia

“…Questionnaires probing health professionals' self-reported knowledge, skills or confidence in communicating with people with aphasia seem an acceptable and feasible approach to measuring outcome in studies of CPT intervention with large sample sizes. Several studies in healthcare or educational settings have used a questionnaire approach (e.g., Baylor et al, 2019;Cameron et al, 2019Cameron et al, , 2017Doherty & Lay, 2019;Heard et al, 2017;Jensen et al, 2014;Power et al, 2020). However, the surveys used have often not been evaluated for validity and alignment intervention goals and components nor have their measurement properties such as their test-retest reliability been assessed.…”