V. Parsons¹, G. Ntani², R. Muiry¹, I. Madan¹, G. Bricker-Katz³

¹Guy's and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, UK

²University of Southampton, UK

³University of Sydney, Australia

Background:

Stammering (stuttering) is a speech disorder with high heterogeneity. It’s characterised by speech that is disrupted by involuntary verbal (repetitions of syllables or blocks on certain sounds) or non-verbal behaviours.

Aims:

To assess the impact of stammering on work and occupational health (OH) usual care.

Methods:

Mixed methods.  We performed descriptive analysis and poisson regression.

Results:

We analysed data from 470 NHS staff questionnaires. Majority of respondents rated their stammer as mild-to-moderate, with 86% perceiving job performance to be adversely impacted. Most (82%) respondents felt anxious at work because of stammering and over two-thirds of respondents were concerned that their stammer made them appear unprofessional and incompetent. Over half of respondents engage in avoidant behaviours at work, with 36% of respondents reporting their stammer influenced decisions not to further their career. Very few sought OH advice. Qualitative data highlighted practical workplace challenges.

Thirty-two OH professionals completed the usual care survey. The most common referral reasons were increased situational anxiety and stress e.g. telephone use, clinical handover sessions, facilitating training, and presentations. We found wide variation in OH assessment consultations, with most OH providers considering their OH clinical staff either possess insufficient knowledge and understanding of speech disorders and their impact on work or were ‘not sure’ whether such knowledge existed (44% and 50% respectively). The majority (90%) expressed an interest in more information on stammering and its impact on work functioning

Conclusion:

Findings informed a new workplace intervention to improve the workplace experience of NHS staff who stammer.

References:

Onslow M. Stuttering and Its Treatment. Eleven Lectures. Sydney, Australia: University of Technology Sydney, 2021. https://www.uts.edu.au/asrc/resources

Bricker-Katz G, Lincoln M, Cumming S. Stuttering and work life: an interpretative phenomenological analysis. J Fluency Disord 2013;38:342–355.

Perez HR, Stoeckle JH. Stuttering: clinical and research update. Can Fam Physician 2016;62:479–484.

Klein JF, Hood SB. The impact of stuttering on employment opportunities and job performance. J Fluency Disord 2004;29:255–273.

Parsons, V., Ntani, G., Muiry, R., Madan, I., & Bricker-Katz, G. (2021). Assessing the psychosocial impact of stammering on work. Occupational Medicine 72 (2): p125-131 .https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqab169