Do best practice recommendations align with current aphasia practices in the Swedish care context: a national survey

Abstract

Background: For healthcare professionals, decision-makers and taxpayers, clinical guidelines and recommendations are tools for implementing interventions supported by research evidence. To ensure efficient, safe, and equal care for people with aphasia (PWA) in Sweden, it is vital that speech and language pathologists (SLPs) can work in accordance with evidence-based practice. Aim: To investigate to which degree the Best practice recommendations for aphasia (BPRA) are already well aligned with current practice in the management of aphasia and to what extent they would require adjustment to fit the Swedish care contexts. Methods and procedures: The BPRA were translated from English to Swedish according to steps 1 and 2 in the translation method recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). A web-based questionnaire was used for data collection. All healthcare regions in Sweden were represented, and the study included a total of 109 SLPs. The participants’ perceived knowledge and application of the recommendations and whether the recommendations can serve as a basis for national clinical guidelines were summarized quantitatively. The participants’ comments on the applicability of the BPRA were analyzed with qualitative content analysis according to an established model. Outcomes and results: Only a few participants indicated they had good knowledge of the BPRA. The responses additionally showed that the application of the BPRA varied between the participants and across clinical settings. Lacking SLP resources was stated to be the main perceived barrier for complying with the recommendations. The participants also stated that the BPRA requires adjustment to provide a partial basis for national clinical guidelines for aphasia and the need for national clinical guidelines to be adjusted to prevalent SLP resources. Conclusions: There are challenges in following up on some of the interventions that, according to both multinational recommendations and Swedish guidelines, should be given priority in the care of PWA. The barriers that are stated to complicate Swedish SLPs’ compliance with some of the multinational recommendations are similar to the barriers posed by SLPs in other national studies on the uptake of aphasia rehabilitation recommendations. In Sweden, SLPs experience a lack of resources of various kinds to be able to fully comply with the BPRA.