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Original Articles

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

ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon & ORCID Icon
Pages 1074-1091 | Received 29 Aug 2018, Accepted 26 Nov 2018, Published online: 06 Dec 2018
 

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.

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.

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.

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