A Longitudinal Study of Communicative Participation in Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis: Latent Classes and Predictors

作者：Baylor Carolyn^*; Amtmann Dagmar; Yorkston Kathryn M

来源：Journal of Medical Speech - Language Pathology, 2012, 20(4): 12-17.

• multiple sclerosis
• communication disorders
• communicative participation

The Communicative Participation Item Bank (CPIB) is a self-report instrument measuring interference in participation in everyday communication situations for community-dwelling adults across a range of communication disorders. Ten items from the CPIB were administered to 500 participants with multiple sclerosis (MS) over a 2-year period (baseline, plus 1 year, plus 2 years). Measures of symptoms (slurred speech, problems thinking, depression, fatigue, social support, and mobility) and demographic data (age, duration of MS, employment status) were also obtained as part of a larger longitudinal study. Growth mixture modeling was used to identify latent classes and their trajectories over time. Three latent classes (all with flat trajectories) were identified: high, mid, and low participation. Members of the high-participation class (77.9% of the sample) were characterized by low levels of slurred speech, depression, and fatigue. The high proportion in this group may reflect that those with more severe symptoms were more likely to withdraw from the study. Of particular interest to speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are the mid-participation class (16.2% of the sample) characterized by low social support and the low-participation class (5.8%) whose members report both low social support and problems thinking. Implications for assessment and intervention approaches are discussed.

• 出版日期2012-12