Assessment Of Competence In Dysphagia Management Among Healthcare Providers: A Scoping Review

Swallowing is a dynamic and complex physiologic process. A high level of care is expected and needed for patients with disordered swallowing. While speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are the preferred healthcare providers for dysphagia management, other healthcare providers also manage dysphagia (ASHA, 2020; Graner et al., 2010). Since swallowing is imperative to sustain life and maintain health, ensuring professional competence in managing swallowing disorders is important. A lack of competence among healthcare providers around dysphagia management may be due to the lack of provider training in this area (Bonilha et al., 2014; Marin et al., 2020; Zuercher et al., 2019). This scoping review aims to describe and compare available metrics used by healthcare providers when assessing competence in dysphagia management. A total of 11 final articles addressed multiple assessments of competence in dysphagia management among healthcare providers. The findings of this scoping review suggest a standardized metric to assess competence in dysphagia among healthcare providers is needed to improve training and maintain healthcare providers’ competence in dysphagia management.