An Evaluation of Speech Therapist Quality of Care at Oncology Hospitals

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Although speech pathology work becomes ever more representative of different perspectives, it has not implementedthe routine of service quality evaluation. Objective: To evaluate the speech patology quality of care in oncology hospitals afterdefining parameters associated to it. Materials and Methods: The study is a sur vey of clinical and rehabilitation data in voiceand/or swallowing treatment protocols and patients histories evaluated and submitted to speech therapy from 2000 to 2005.With the purpose of measuring the quality of care given to 551 selected patients, subjective parameters for evaluation ofspeech therapy rehabilitation were established. Results: The evolution of the patients voice and/or swallowing condition wasclassified from good to excellent in 62.7% of patients even so only 17.6% have received therapy discharge; 61.8% of the 374patients who had abandoned treatment had a satisfactory evolution in rehabilitation. Factors like sex, age, marital status,staging, and tumor localization are predictive as regards rehabilitation adherence as well as the evolution of the condition.Conclusion: Results gave a measure of the speech therapy quality of care in oncology hospitals and indicated associatedpredictive factors.