The Status of Dysphagia Clinics During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Selen Serel-Arslan, Numan Demir, Peter Charles Belafsky
PMID 34792621WHAT IT FOUND
Dysphagia clinics shifted to split shifts and increased telehealth use during the pandemic.
Evaluations dropped significantly. Fourteen clinics used temperature checks, but four used no screening. Clinicians reported moderate trust in remote assessments, citing internet issues as the main barrier.
Key findings
01Telehealth use in dysphagia clinics rose from 13.0% before the pandemic to 52.2% during the pandemic.
02The number of patients seen and total evaluations performed decreased significantly during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels.
03While 60.9% of clinics used temperature checks for screening, 17.4% of clinics used no COVID-19 screening procedures before evaluations.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The response rate was 47.91%, meaning more than half of the contacted clinics did not respond, which may bias the results toward clinics with more resources or time to participate. The sample size was small (23 clinics) and unevenly distributed across countries, limiting the ability to generalize findings globally. The survey relied on self-reported data from clinic representatives, which may not accurately reflect the day-to-day realities of all staff or patients.
Declared interests
The authors did not report any conflicts of interest or specific funding sources for this study in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the increase in telehealth usage or the moderate trust scores as evidence that telehealth is as effective as in-person care for dysphagia. The study reports usage and opinions, not clinical outcomes or safety data for remote management.