An Exploratory Survey of Priorities in Establishing Telepractice System for SLPs and Caregivers in Korea

Abstract

This study investigated factors prioritized by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and caregivers for telehealth services involving speech-language assessments and interventions and determined whether the priorities differed between SLPs and caregivers in Korea. The survey data obtained from 23 SLPs and 50 caregivers were analyzed using analytic hierarchical process (AHP) methodology. The results showed that the "SLP" category was the most important high-level category and "building rapport with the child client" in the "SLP" category was of the highest priorities for both SLPs and caregivers across all factors. Furthermore, the rank-order of a few categories and the global priority between SLPs and caregivers varied slightly. These findings suggest that, in addition to important factors associated with SLPs and caregivers, the different expectations of service providers and clients using telepractice in Korea should be addressed.