Educational interventions for patients with oropharyngeal dysphagia and their informal caregivers: a scoping review

Introduction: An essential component of oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) management is education of patients and their caregivers. However, clear and precise recommendations are not always present in patient/caregiver education. Objective: The objective of this article is to summarize evidence reported in the literature from 1996 to 2021 for therapeutic patient education (TPE) in OD, with a focus on, the modalities of the interventions, as well as the evaluation of educational interventions for adult patients with OD and their informal caregivers (ICGs). Methods: A search for relevant studies was completed on: Medline (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), and Scopus. Additional searches were performed on Google Scholar, and Open Grey. Data was collected relying on the Patient Education Research Characteristics model. Results-Discussion: In the 17 selected articles, different educational strategies and interventions were used through different modalities. Educational content mostly targeted knowledge about the normal mechanism of swallowing, application of specific rehabilitation exercises, and compensatory strategies. Evaluation of the effectiveness of these educational interventions includes several criteria. Important details are missing in the literature; such as details of the educational strategies amongst others. Conclusion: There is little evidence guiding educational interventions for OD patients and their ICG. Further studies are needed to understand which TPE program would be effective in OD, but first, there is a need to have an agreement on the goals of educational interventions.