title: An exploration of participant experience of a communication training program for people with traumatic brain injury and their communication partners.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the experiences of participants who attended communication training programs for people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their everyday communication partners (CP) as part of a non-randomised controlled trial.
  
  
  METHODS
  The participants were people with TBI and their CP, who were family members or carers of the people with TBI. Twenty-six participants (13 participants with TBI and 13 CP) completed the JOINT program, which involved participants with TBI and CP attending the program together. Fourteen participants with TBI completed the TBI SOLO training program, which did not involve the participation of a CP. Semi-structured videotaped interviews were completed by all participants at the end of the training. Using a six-step generic analysis procedure, data were categorised into topics and then subtopics to identify conceptually discrete units.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants described improvements in communication skills, the impact of improved communication skills, valuable components of the programs and components that needed changes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The accounts of participants provided additional evidence for the effectiveness of the training programs, assisted with identifying helpful components of the training and demonstrated the usefulness of a qualitative research methodology as part of evaluating the outcomes of the clinical trial.
authors.affiliation: Speech Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. leanne.togher@sydney.edu.au
authors.forename: Leanne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Togher
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Power
authors.forename: Rachael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rietdijk
authors.forename: Skye
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McDonald
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tate
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D003142:Communication; D003147:Communication Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D015600:Glasgow Coma Scale; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D015397:Program Evaluation; D036301:Qualitative Research; D020377:Self Efficacy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014741:Video Recording