The reliability of evaluating conversations between people with traumatic brain injury and their communication partners via videoconferencing

ABSTRACT

There is growing interest in using telehealth to work with people with traumatic brain injury (TBI). This study investigated whether established rating scales for evaluating conversations of people with TBI are reliable for use over videoconferencing. Nineteen participants with TBI and their communication partners completed two conversation samples during both in-person (IP) and videoconferencing-based (VC) assessment, with randomised order of assessment. Independent clinicians evaluated the conversations using the Adapted Measure of Participation in Conversation (MPC), the Adapted Measure of Support in Conversation (MSC) and the Global Impression scales. Comparisons between IP and VC ratings identified no significant differences on the MPC, MSC, and four out of five of the Global Impression scales. There was a significant difference between IP and VC recordings for “Task Completion” (p = .047), with participants performing significantly better in VC ratings. Inter-rater reliability was fair to excellent for the MPC and Global Impression scales for both IP and VC recordings. For the MSC scale, inter-rater reliability was poor to excellent. This study confirms the potential for using videoconferencing for evaluating conversations of people with TBI. Further development of training and rating procedures for these scales could facilitate more frequent and reliable use of these measures.

KEYWORDS:

• Traumatic brain injury
• Conversation
• Assessment
• Telehealth
• Reliability

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the families who participated in this research. We would also like to thank staff at the Hunter Brain Injury Service, New England Brain Injury Rehabilitation Service, Liverpool Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit and Royal Rehabilitation Centre, and speech pathologist Colleen Kerr for assistance with recruitment. We would like to thank speech pathologists Sophie Brassel and An An Chia who supported the data analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Rachael Rietdijk http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4343-4039

Emma Power http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2638-0406

Melissa Brunner http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6823-5189

Leanne Togher http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4518-6748

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) through the Institute for Safety Compensation and Recovery Research [grant number NGE-E-13-073]; Australian Postgraduate Award (This funding is currently called an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship); NHMRC CRE Moving Ahead Seed Grant.