Visual analog rating of mood by people with aphasia

Considerable attention has been given to the identification of depression in stroke survivors with aphasia, but there is more limited information about other mood states. Visual analog scales are often used to collect subjective information from people with aphasia. However, the validity of these methods for communicating about mood has not been established in people with moderately to severely impaired language.

The dual purposes of this study were to characterize the relative endorsement of negative and positive mood states in people with chronic aphasia after stroke and to examine congruent validity for visual analog rating methods for people with a range of aphasia severity.

Twenty-three left-hemisphere stroke survivors with aphasia were asked to indicate their present mood by using two published visual analog rating methods. The congruence between the methods was estimated through correlation analysis, and scores for different moods were compared.

Endorsement was significantly stronger for "happy" than for mood states with negative valence. At the same time, several participants displayed pronounced negative mood compared to previously published norms for neurologically healthy adults. Results from the two rating methods were moderately and positively correlated.

Positive mood is prominent in people with aphasia who are in the chronic stage of recovery after stroke, but negative moods can also be salient and individual presentations are diverse. Visual analog rating methods are valid methods for discussing mood with people with aphasia; however, design optimization should be explored.