Mental Healthcare Services for Persons With Communication Disorders: Experiences of Mental Health Professionals in Gauteng

Background

Persons with communication disorders are susceptible to mental health difficulties and often require the help of mental healthcare professionals. Mental healthcare interventions require a significant amount of communication between the mental healthcare professional and the person with communication disorders, yet not much is known about how mental healthcare professionals provide mental healthcare services to persons with communication disorders. The study, therefore, aims to explore the experiences of mental healthcare professionals in providing mental healthcare services to persons with communication disorders.

Methods

A qualitative phenomenological research approach was employed, where 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted with mental healthcare professionals practising in the Gauteng Province of South Africa (n = 7 social workers; n = 3 psychologists; n = 1 counsellor). Participants were purposively selected for the study. Data were analysed using inductive reflexive thematic analysis.

Results

The following four themes emerged from the data that were analysed: (i) lack of preparedness to provide care to persons with communication disorders, (ii) communication barriers, (iii) emotional effects and (iv) accommodations.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that communication barriers are a source of frustration, and they hinder persons with communication disorders from accessing quality mental healthcare services. There is therefore a need to include in the curriculum of mental healthcare professionals, training on communication disorders and on strategies to foster communication with this population during intervention. Conversational partner training and collaborations between mental healthcare professionals and speech language therapists could potentially be used to address the communication barriers in mental healthcare provision for persons with communication disorders.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

What is already known on this subject

• Persons with communication disorders are susceptible to mental health difficulties because the communication impairment reduces their societal and economic inclusivity, thus placing them at a higher risk of developing mental health challenges. Unfortunately access to quality mental healthcare services is a challenge for this population for many reasons, with the most pronounced one being the fact that they do not depend on verbal language to communicate their needs (are voiceless) and require reasonable accommodation to facilitate communication, yet the techniques and methods used in mental healthcare intervention whether formal or informal are predominantly based on verbal communication.

What this paper adds to existing knowledge

• The study advocates for the implementation of educational opportunities for mental healthcare providers through communication/conversational partner training programmes. These programmes can potentially improve their knowledge and skills on how to effectively support communication with persons with communication disorders, to mitigate communication challenges. Research has demonstrated positive effects of communication partner training. Speech language therapists, as communication brokers due to their expertise in facilitating communication, should be at the centre of developing such training programmes. Speech language therapists should also foster collaborations with mental healthcare professionals in clinical spaces when treating persons with communication disorders.

What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?

• The lack of knowledge on communication disorders and the subsequent lack of knowledge and skills on appropriate communication strategies to implement when conducting mental healthcare interventions with persons with communication disorders compromises patient care and subjects persons with communication disorders to continuous substandard patient care, which is essentially an infringement on their right to healthcare. It is common knowledge that communication forms the cornerstone of all healthcare interventions, and where there are communication barriers between healthcare providers and their patients, healthcare provision becomes unsuccessful, resulting in negative patient outcomes. The study offers a potential solution to these communication challenges.