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30 Speak Out April 2017
Ethics news
SPEECH PATHOLOGISTS SEEK to provide benefit through
interventions delivered to clients. This is described in the Code
of Ethics as “beneficence, we seek to benefit others through our
activities”. A key method for ensuring that we are providing benefit
is to know and apply the evidence that supports a particular
intervention. It is our ethical obligation to do so: to have current
information, which we can explain to clients, regarding how our
intervention is expected to provide benefit.
Apart from being an ethical obligation, knowledge and application
of evidence to speech pathology practise has many benefits for
us as professionals. Speech pathologists are having discussions
with consumers who are increasingly proactive and informed
about treatment options. Discussions regarding the “latest”
treatment in the media or literature can pose a challenge for a
clinician. Speech pathologists may work with a client who has
read the research literature supporting a treatment and wishes to
discuss details at a professional level. For example, conversations
when service delivery is restricted to a frequency that is not
supported by the research, due to factors not directly in the
speech pathologist’s control (such as resource allocation), yet the
client is aware of the evidence for a particular frequency in order
to have a beneficial effect. This conversation can be challenging.
The conversations we have to discuss appropriate service
provision with managers, such as to advocate for appropriate
frequency of intervention for a client, can also be challenging.
Knowing the evidence to support those discussions is essential.
Another scenario is when a client asks for a particular intervention
they have heard of, but the speech pathologist is aware that
there is no robust evidence behind that intervention. Knowing the
evidence for the interventions we are proposing as well as the
lack of evidence for the intervention the client is insisting on is
indispensable for that discussion.
A further obligation for speech pathologists is to ensure
that interventions provided for our clients are within our
skills, knowledge and expertise, as well as providing benefit.
Unfortunately, from time to time, reports are received at National
Office of speech pathologists providing interventions that have
popular following in the community however do not have robust
evidence behind them. Our professional ethics requires us to have
the knowledge of what will assist clients to achieve their goals; to
understand the evidence that supports interventions; to provide
those interventions that will make a positive difference and to
have the skills and expertise required to apply that knowledge in
a therapeutic way. If a speech pathologist uses interventions that
are not supported by appropriate evidence, the potential is that
we may not be providing beneficence for our clients. Evidence
can also assist us to assure non-maleficence, i.e. “we seek to
prevent harm, and do not knowingly cause harm”.
The benefit of evidence
FOR SPEECH PATHOLOGISTS KNOWLEDGE AND USE OF APPROPRIATE EVIDENCE IS THE ASSURANCE
FOR OUR CLIENTS THAT WE DELIVER INTERVENTIONS THAT WILL PROVIDE BENEFIT. SENIOR ADVISOR
TRISH JOHNSON EXPLORES THE BENEFITS OF EVIDENCE TO SPEECH PATHOLOGY PRACTICE.