The purpose of this research is to identify the location and threshold of pharyngeal residue at which clinicians restrict diets for patients in the outpatient setting. 60 clinicians will judge 25 pairs of photos from FEES (fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing) where each of the five levels of pharyngeal residue (e.g. none, trace, mild, moderate, and severe) are represented. These levels are used by the standardized and validated Yale Pharyngeal Residue Severity Rating Scale (YPRSRS).11 Residue severity in both the valleculae and pyriform sinuses will be presented, creating 25 image combinations. The patient history for each pair of photographs is the same: no airway compromise has occurred, the patient is ambulatory, does not require supplemental oxygen, has no cognitive deficits and is receiving out-patient care. Clinicians will indicate at which severity level of pharyngeal residue they are most likely to restrict the diet using a Likert scale (e.g. "extremely unlikely", "unlikely", "neutral", "likely", and "extremely unlikely"). Observing diet restrictions when pharyngeal residue reaches moderate levels would support our hypothesis that clinicians make risk-averse recommendations.
The other aim of this project is to evaluate the impact of evidence-based education on clinician decision-making regarding pharyngeal residue and location. Half of the clinicians will be randomized to the treatment group and watch a recorded 30-minute pre-recorded video presentation about research on pharyngeal residue before they complete the image assessment task. Using this information, a comparison can be made with diet restriction patterns between the educated (treatment) and non-educated (control) groups, potentially demonstrating whether evidence-based clinical research reduces fear-based decision-making. Should the investigators observe that the experimental group restricts diets less than the control group, the hypothesis that clinicians and patients benefit from evidence-based clinical education would be accurate.
Finally, the researcher would like to determine the rationale behind clinician decision-making. During the qualitative portion of this study, the researcher will interview eight clinicians. Clinicians will be chosen from the original group of 60 to participate in a structured interview to investigate the rationale behind their clinical decision-making. An analysis will be completed to determine the distribution of clinicians who chose to restrict the diet compared to those who did not. The clinicians chosen will reflect the ratio of restrictive and non-restrictive clinicians. The researchers anticipate that clinicians who watched the recorded research presentation are less likely to restrict diets based on pharyngeal residue alone regardless of the location. In collecting data, a bottom-up descriptive approach will be utilized. A phenomenological framework will investigate the various factors that might impact a clinician's decision to restrict a diet.
