Group Education for Future Healthcare Professionals on Aphasia and Communication Partner Strategies

Abstract: Many healthcare professionals receive little to no training in communicating with individuals with aphasia, which can negatively affect patient participation and quality of care. Communication partner training (CPT), including Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia (SCA), has demonstrated benefits, but many established training models rely on multi-component or resource-intensive formats. This study examined whether future healthcare professionals could acquire knowledge of aphasia and supported communication strategies through a brief, facilitated group training using the SCA eLearning module with special permission from the Aphasia Institute. Sixty-seven students, primarily from graduate physician associate and undergraduate nursing programs, participated in an interprofessional education event. Knowledge, strategy recall, and confidence were measured before and after training using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. The Aphasia Attitudes, Strategies, and Knowledge (AASK) survey served as the outcome measure. Participants demonstrated statistically significant pretest-to-posttest improvements in aphasia knowledge, supported communication strategy recall, and self-reported confidence in their preparedness to communicate with individuals with communication barriers. Between-group analyses did not detect statistically significant differences between physician associate and nursing students. These findings provide preliminary support for brief, facilitated, group-based delivery of the SCA eLearning module as a feasible and scalable approach to foundational CPT for future healthcare professionals.