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The impact of communication disability on interdisciplinary discussion in rehabilitation case conferences
Alison Ferguson1, Linda Worrall, Sue Sherratt
1School of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Australia. ferguson@newcastle.edu.au
Purpose:
This article presents a descriptive research study that investigated the issues discussed in rehabilitation case conferences, with specific reference to patients with acquired communication disabilities of neurological origin.
Method:
A series of six routine rehabilitation case conferences of between 1 and 2 h, involving between 10 and 14 health professionals, were observed by a researcher who took detailed field notes. These data were analysed using a combination of apriori coding categories based on the International Classification of Functioning-WHO, 2001, and content and thematic analyses.
Results:
The rank order of frequency of contribution by each discipline reflected both distinct ('disciplinary') and overlapping ('interdisciplinary') areas of professional areas of expertise and responsibility. Although the speech pathologist was often alone in discussing communication goals, there was much interdisciplinary discussion for clients with impaired communication and/or cognitive capacity, and the presence of communication disability was associated with more conflict in the discussion.
Conclusions:
The findings of this research locate critical challenges in rehabilitation case conferences for interprofessional interaction, particularly in the team's shared responsibility for representing the 'voice' of inpatients with communication disability.
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