Training students from rehabilitation professions on communicating with patients with communication disorders

Abstract

Background: FRAME, a mnemonic referring to a program for helping health care providers adapt patient-provider communication when working with patients with communication disorders, improves the knowledge, confidence, and communication skills of medical students for working with this population. However, the impact of the FRAME program for preparing students from the rehabilitation disciplines to work with patients with communication disorders is unknown. Objective: To examine the effects of the FRAME program on the knowledge, confidence, and communication skills of students in physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), and prosthetics and orthotics (P&O) in terms of how to communicate effectively with patients with communication disorders. Design: An exploratory, quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. Setting: PT, OT, and P&O clinical education programs at the University of Washington's Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. Participants: Twenty rehabilitation students (PT = 12; OT = 7; and P&O = 1) participated in the FRAME training. Interventions: The FRAME program, delivered in a single, 2-hour session teaches students communication skills to use with patients with various types of communication disorders.Main Outcome Measures: A quiz of students' knowledge about communication disorders and a self-rating of confidence for interacting with this patient population were used. Speech-language pathology graduate clinicians rated students' use of communication strategies from each area of the FRAME training during interactions with standardized patients portraying aphasia and dysarthria. Student qualitative feedback were also collected. Results: Students' knowledge, confidence, and use of communication strategies improved significantly following training. Greatest gains were observed in students' ability to familiarize themselves with how a patient communicates and establish a method of communication before proceeding with the interview. Qualitative feedback aligned with these findings. Conclusions: The FRAME program increases the knowledge, confidence, and use of communication strategies in rehabilitation students in order to communicate more effectively with patients with communication disorders in their future careers.

Promotion vs. Prevention Regulatory Focus in Physical Therapy Students

“…Of 116 students who received the survey, 110 students (94.83%) completed the demographic survey section. The mean age for the sample was 24.95 ± 2.9 (range of [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], there were 37 males (33.64%) and 73 females (66.36%). Table 1 shows participant characteristics strati ed by sex.…”

“…Effective communication between patients and providers in the rehabilitation setting affects the quality of patient-centered care and rehabilitation outcomes (Mach et al 2022). Physical therapy students, during training, are tasked with learning how to communicate the importance of full participation/effort to achieve therapy goals, which is one of many challenges to rehabilitation efforts (Baker et al 2001).…”

The case for health professional student communication skills training for persons with aphasia

“…FRAME training gives health professional students a framework to interact with PWA 15 . The FRAME outline is as follows: Familiarize how patient communicates with baseline understanding and preferences Reduce rate of speaking Assist with confirming understanding Mix communication with verbal, written, body language, pictures Engage the patient to respect autonomy …”

Lessons on Health Literacy and Communication in Post-Stroke Rehabilitation:

“…The FRAME model for patient communication and education was developed by Baylor and colleagues and implemented for medical students interacting with stroke survivors with aphasia and other communication disorders. 15 , 16 During this model’s development, students watched a short, preparatory video followed by a 2-hour training. This seminar resulted in a statistically significant increase in medical students’ confidence and efficacy when working with patients with varying communication skills and styles.…”