Assessment of Awareness Among Speech and Language Pathology Regarding Dysphagia

Abstract

Dysphagia is the difficulty in swallowing and speech pathologists are the professional which deal with the disorder. As it is a rare and complicated disorder so most speech language pathologist avoid or ignore such patients due to lack of exposure. Despite sound theoretical knowledge, clinical practice was lacking. Objective: To understand the awareness of dysphagia among speech and language pathology in Pakistan. Methods: It is a cross-sectional study conducted across Pakistan. Data was collected by questionnaire based on demographic profile and theoretical and professional knowledge among 75 participants. The data was analyzed by “Statistical Package for Social Sciences” SPSS (version 20.0). Results: Our results showed that 62.2%, of speech language pathologists did not have significant knowledge of dysphagia, 65% of speech language pathologist had minimum experience working with dysphagia, and 65% speech language pathologist said that they have at least worked once with dysphagia. A significant relationship was found between awareness of dysphagia among speech language pathologist. After analyzing the data using SPSS, it was concluded that majority of people had awareness of dysphagia. Majority of the lacking was seen in people who did not practice with patients of dysphagia and fresh graduates had goods results because of recent academic
exposure.