Treatment Fidelity in a Feasibility Trial of the Aphasia Intervention, Virtual Elaborated Semantic Feature Analysis.
Niamh Devane, Sofia Mazzoleni, Nicholas Behn and 3 others
PMID 40405765WHAT IT FOUND
The virtual aphasia intervention was delivered with 81% adherence to the protocol.
Rationale for activities and specific feedback were the least consistent components. Challenge tasks helped participants use practiced words in real life, with 14 of 15 reporting success.
Key findings
01Overall adherence to the treatment protocol was 81%, with individual sessions averaging 78% and group sessions 84%.
02Providing a rationale for activities and giving specific feedback were the least consistently delivered components, appearing in only 1 of 18 individual sessions and 50% of individual sessions respectively.
0314 of 15 participants reported using words and phrases practiced in the virtual world in real-world conversations.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The fidelity checklists were developed after the trial began, which may have contributed to inconsistent delivery of some components. Only one therapist delivered the intervention, so findings may not generalize to trials with multiple providers. Raters included students and trainees with varying levels of experience, which may have affected reliability scores. This was a feasibility trial, so the sample size (16 in the treatment arm) is too small to determine clinical efficacy.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high adherence rates as evidence that the VESFA intervention improves word finding outcomes. This study only reports on how faithfully the treatment was delivered, not whether it worked.