Assessing mental health of people with complex communication needs: A systematic review

Published
Tuesday, January 21, 2025 - 12:00 PM

This systematic review aimed to identify and describe instruments used to measure wellbeing in people with complex communication needs. The review found that instruments tended to actually measure quality of life – which is different to wellbeing. However, we identified four features which should be considered if adapting or developing a wellbeing instrument for people with communication disability. The four features are: ensuring communication access; recognising the relative importance of wellbeing indicators to an individual; collecting information from multiple sources when using proxy-report; and acknowledging environmental factors.

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Pennacchia, J. M., Østvok, J., Dutia I., Walsh, M., Coghill, D., Granlund, M., Imms, C. (2025) Assessing mental health of people with complex communication needs: a systematic review. Journal of Communication Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2025.106494.

 

 

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