Do measures of language impairment predict patient‐reported communication difficulty and distress as measured by the Burden of Stroke Scale (BOSS)?

Background: Patient‐reported measures of communication difficulty and communication‐related distress may be used to obtain efficient and valid indices of the functional consequences of aphasia and its treatment on the daily lives of many community‐dwelling stroke survivors. However, they have not been employed to evaluate treatment outcomes or to examine hypotheses specifying their relationship to commonly employed measures of speech and language impairment in persons with aphasia. This work was supported by the VHA Department of Rehabilitation Research and Development Merit Review Program (Project # C2386R), and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System's Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC). The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Burden of Stroke Scale (BOSS) Phase 2 Field Trial collaborators, Katherine Ross PhD, VAMC Phoenix, and Julie Wambaugh PhD, VAMC Salt Lake City, the assistance of their respective study team members, Steve Larson MA, Rosalea Cameron MA, and Christina ...