Abstract

     Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of tele-speech therapy on the recovery of patients with a stutter.
Methods: This research was an interventional study conducted on the patients visiting two rehabilitation centres. In this study, patients with a stutter participated in the tele-speech therapy sessions via Skype. Stuttering Severity Instrument-Fourth Edition was used to determine the severity of stutter before and after the intervention.
Results: The results showed a significant difference in the mean scores of stuttering severity before and after tele-speech therapy (p ¼ 0.001). Our findings showed a mean reduction of 13.8% in stuttering scores. More than half of the patients (56.6%) reported a “high” and “very high” satisfaction with this treatment method.
Conclusions: Tele-speech therapy is an effective way for the treatment of stuttering patients irrespective of their age, gender, and educational background. This method can improve patient’s speech and reduce stuttering.

Introduction

     Today, telemedicine is profoundly used as a means for the remote interaction of patients with healthcare providers with the goal of providing better access to the providers, reducing medical costs, preventing unnecessary patients referrals to healthcare centres, reducing waiting time for appointments and improving patient care [1]. One of the important telemedicine subspecialties is telerehabilitation, which provides services to disabled patients by utilising telecommunication technologies; and minimises distance, time and cost barriers for delivery of care [2].

     Early treatment of speech and language disorders increases the chance of improving communication skills in patients. According to the Scientific Secretary of the 12th Conference of Speech Therapy, 5–6% of the Iranian population suffer from speech disorders, among which stutter with 0.7 prevalence is a common disorder [3]. Access to appropriate treatment is not provided to all these patients due to unavailability and lack of providers such as speech-language pathologists in some regions, the high cost of transferring patients, patients travel fatigue, and long rehabilitation process [4]. Tele-speech therapy can be an effective alternative when a speech therapist is not available [5]. In Iran, different languages with different dialects and accents are spoken. In the field of speech therapy, in order to provide optimal service, the full conformity of the language and accent of therapist and patient is essential. For example, an Azeri-language patient needs a therapist who speaks the same language but this therapist may not be available in the patient’s region [6]. The use of technology as a facilitator provides the possibility of communication with a speech therapist [7] and offers fair access to this type of service for all patients [4]. Although access to the technology in Iran is not comparable to most of the countries across the globe, a previous study in Iran showed that the applied infrastructure for the treatment of stutter is appropriate [8]. In this study, the participants sometimes experienced a delay in displaying videos due to a low Internet connection, however, repeated use of the infrastructure during the treatment led to more satisfaction [8].

Conclusions

     Tele-speech therapy effectively improves the speech of patients with stuttering and reduces the stuttering severity of patients. Beside the effectiveness of this therapeutic method, the majority of patients were satisfied with this method. Due to the uneven distribution of speech therapists in many countries like Iran, the use of tele-speech therapy can improve patients’ access to effective treatment without the need to travel. It is recommended that health policymakers, the ministry of health authorities, budget allocation officials, and health system managers make the critical decisions and take serious actions to implement telespeech therapy for patients who have no face-to-face access to this service.