Measuring the interactions of people with dementia and their conversation partners: a preliminary adaption of the Kagan measures of support and participation in conversation

Abstract

Objective While dementia can negatively affect communication, positive interactions can be facilitated by the conversation partners of people with dementia. There are few assessment tools designed to evaluate the support provided by the conversation partner and the resulting participation of the person with dementia. This study reports on an adaptation of the Measure of Support in Conversation (MSC) and Measure of Participation in Conversation (MPC) scales for use with people with dementia and their conversation partners (the MSC Dementia and MPC Dementia, respectively) and investigates the inter-and intra-rater reliability of these adapted measures. Method The MSC-D and MPC-D scales were adapted from the original MSC and MPC scales to reflect current knowledge of communication and interaction involving people with dementia. Audio recordings of a total of 25 casual conversations, lasting 5–10 min, between a person with dementia and familiar aged care staff were independently rated by two raters to investigate inter-rater reliability and by one rater on two separate occasions to investigate intra-rater reliability. Results ICC analyses on the MSC-D indicated good inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.718–0.812) and intra-rater reliability (ICC = 0.628–0.760). The MPC-D had excellent inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.904–0.945) and intra-rater reliability (ICC = 0.925–0.957). 93.6% of all ratings were within 0.5 of each other on a nine point scale from 0 to 4. Conclusion The results provide preliminary support for the use of these adapted scales. Further research is required to investigate the validity and reliability of these scales using video recordings and across a wider range of communication genres.