Communicating simply, but not too simply: Reporting of participants and speech and language interventions for aphasia after stroke

Abstract

Purpose: Speech and language pathology (SLP) for aphasia is a complex intervention delivered to a heterogeneous population within diverse settings. Simplistic descriptions of participants and interventions in research hinder replication, interpretation of results, guideline and research developments through secondary data analyses. This study aimed to describe the availability of participant and intervention descriptors in existing aphasia research datasets.

Method: We systematically identified aphasia research datasets containing ≥10 participants with information on time since stroke and language ability. We extracted participant and SLP intervention descriptions and considered the availability of data compared to historical and current reporting standards. We developed an extension to the Template for Intervention Description and Replication checklist to support meaningful classification and synthesis of the SLP interventions to support secondary data analysis.

Result: Of 11, 314 identified records we screened 1131 full texts and received 75 dataset contributions. We extracted data from 99 additional public domain datasets. Participant age (97.1%) and sex (90.8%) were commonly available. Prior stroke (25.8%), living context (12.1%) and socio-economic status (2.3%) were rarely available. Therapy impairment target, frequency and duration were most commonly available but predominately described at group level. Home practice (46.3%) and tailoring (functional relevance 46.3%) were inconsistently available.

Conclusion : Gaps in the availability of participant and intervention details were significant, hampering clinical implementation of evidence into practice and development of our field of research. Improvements in the quality and consistency of participant and intervention data reported in aphasia research are required to maximise clinical implementation, replication in research and the generation of insights from secondary data analysis.

Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42018110947

Keywords:

• stroke
• aphasia
• speech and language therapy
• complex interventions

Conflict of interest

Marian Brady reports grants from Chief Scientist Office (CSO), Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates, grants from EU Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) funded Collaboration of Aphasia Scientists (IS1208 www.aphasiatrials.org), and grants from The Tavistock Trust for Aphasia during the conduct of the study, and is a member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Audrey Bowen reports that data from her research is included within the analyses in the RELEASE report. Her post at the University of Manchester is partly funded by research grants and personal awards from NIHR and Stroke Association.

Caterina Breitenstein reports grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) during the conduct of the study.

Erin Godecke reports Western Australian State Health Research Advisory Council (SHRAC) Research Translation Project Grants RSD-02720; 2008/2009 during the conduct of the study.

Neil Hawkins reports grants from National Institute for Health Research during the conduct of the study.

Katerina Hilari reports grants from The Stroke Association, grants from European Social Fund and Greek National Strategic Reference Framework, and grants from The Tavistock Trust for Aphasia outside the submitted work.

Petra Jaecks reports a PhD grant from Weidmüller Stiftung.

Brian MacWhinney reports grants from National Institutes of Health.

Rebecca Marshall reports grants from National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, NIH, USA during the conduct of the study.

Rebecca Palmer reports grants from NIHR senior clinical academic lectureship, grants from NIHR HTA, and grants from Tavistock Trust for Aphasia outside the submitted work.

Ilias Papathanasiou reports funding from European Social Fund and Greek National Strategic Reference Framework.

Jerzy Szaflarski reports personal fees from SK Life Sciences, personal fees from LivaNova Inc, personal fees from Lundbeck, personal fees from NeuroPace Inc, personal fees from Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc, grants and personal fees from SAGE Pharmaceuticals, grants and personal fees from UCB Pharma, grants from Biogen, grants from Eisai Inc, and other from GW Pharmaceuticals, outside the submitted work.

Shirley Thomas reports research grants from NIHR and The Stroke Association outside the submitted work.

Ineke van der Meulen reports grants from Stichting Rotterdams Kinderrevalidatiefonds Adriaanstichting, other from Stichting Afasie Nederland, other from Stichting Coolsingel, and other from Bohn Stafleu van Loghum during the conduct of the study.

Linda Worrall reports a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

All other authors have declared no competing interests

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2020.1762000

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Health Services and Delivery Research Programme (HS&DR–14/04/22) and the Tavistock Trust for Aphasia and will be published in full in the Health Services and Delivery Research Journal. Further information is available at https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/hsdr/140422/#/. MCB and the NMAHP Research Unit is funded by the Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates.