Allied health professions LifecurveTM survey: report on respondents with communication support needs

3. Survey Content

The survey questionnaire was presented in two parts. The first part asked respondents to provide information on the activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) that they could and could not complete without help from either a person or using equipment, and the length of time since they were last able to complete them. It also asked for background information on the person's domestic situation and their attendance at their AHP appointment. The second part asked the AHP to complete the questionnaire by providing information on their profession, band / grade, the NHS board and the Health and Social Care Partnership^[1] (HSCP; referred to as 'partnership' from this point) area where the respondent was seen.

Following consideration of a submission from SG's Assisted Communication policy team, one overarching question about communication support needs was included in part one of the questionnaire:

'Do you have any communication support needs? E.g. hearing or low vision aid, interpreter, large print, easy read, communication aid'.

The total responses to the questionnaire (n=13345) were filtered by those who had answered 'yes' (n=2883) and 'no' (n=10462) to this question. Respondents who answered 'yes' are the primary focus of this report. As this was a yes/no question the responses cannot be further broken down by type of communication support needs. Rather, they provide a high level overview of people with a wide range of communication and sensory needs across Scotland, though potentially excluding people with very severe communication support needs who might have been unable to respond to the survey.