Title The Hospital Communication Disability Screener: Detecting patients with communication

activity limitation in the acute hospital setting Many people with language and /or cognitive impairments experience difficulty communicating their healthcare needs when they are patients in hospital. That is, they have a communication activity limitation. The Inpatient Functional Communication Interview (IFCI) is a tool to assess communication activity limitation in the hospital setting, however it takes too long to administer to all inpatients. A screening tool is needed. The IFCI assessments of 71 patients were analysed to develop a screening tool, called the Hospital Communication Disability Screener to detect patients with a communication activity limitation in the hospital setting. Background Many people with language and/or cognitive impairments experience difficulty communicating their healthcare needs when they are patients in hospital (Parr, Byng, Gilpin, & Ireland, 1997). The Inpatient Functional Communication Interview (IFCI; O'Halloran, Worrall, Toffolo, Code, & Hickson, 2004) was developed to identify those hospital inpatients who experience difficulty communicating their healthcare needs in hospital. The IFCI can be considered a measure of a person’s communication activity limitation in the World Healt