Staff experiences of an interprofessional community aphasia group

ABSTRACT

Background: Evidence to guide training and support for aphasia group staff is limited, yet staff are integral to group efficacy.

Aim: To explore experiences of staff involved in a 12-week interprofessional community aphasia group for people with severe chronic aphasia and their spouses.

Methods & Procedures: A speech-language pathologist, social worker, peer aide with aphasia, and aide staffed the group. Staff participated in semi-structured interviews and Framework Analysis was utilised to interpret the data.

Outcomes & Results: A dynamic set of components contributed to the staff program experience. Staff highlighted the importance of a “good team mix”, and discussed elements contributing to and detracting from positive group dynamics and a relaxed and non-threatening environment. Program content and the level of structure and flexibility were considered to have positive impacts for members overall, with further adaptations suggested. Positive impacts for both staff and members contributed to perceived value in the group. Differing staff perspectives regarding therapy and recovery, and group service added an additional layer to staff experiences.

Conclusions: The findings reflect the complexity of group service provision, with implications for how to better train and support staff and improve the present model. Further research is needed to understand the staff experiences across different group models.

KEYWORDS:

• Speech-language pathologist
• interprofessional
• social worker
• peer
• facilitation
• qualitative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors..

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (#1010061; fourth author)