Burden of informal caregivers of people without natural speech: a mixed-methods intervention study

Table 4 Changes in burden scores from after initial AAC consultation (T0), four weeks after AAC system receipt (T1) to four months after AAC system receipt (T2) by intervention group (nSD) (n = 88) and control group (SDeC) (n = 66) controlled by T0 and controlled by T0 and propensity score (PS) – significant results marked with a star

	T0				T1				T2
	Mean		SD		Mean		SD		Mean	SD
nSD	1.031		0.755		0.973		0.743		0.919	0.707
SDeC	1.042		0.677		1.070		0.819		1.200	0.771
Pairwise T-test between groups
	T0				T1				T2
	T	p		Cohen’s d	T		p	Cohen’s d	T	p		Cohen’s d
	-0,100	0,921		-	-0,767		0,444	-	-2,346*	0,020		0,735
Within-subjects T-test
	T0–T1				T0–T2				T1–T2
	T	p		Cohen’s d	T		p	Cohen’s d	T	p		Cohen’s d
nSD	0,892	0,375		-	1,489		0,140	-	0,917	0,362		-
SDeC	-0,343	0,732		-	-2,084*		0,041	0,614	-2,034^*	0,046		0,520
	Main effect time			Main effect group			*Interaction (timePS)**			Interaction (time^*group)
	F_{df1, df2}	p	P, η²	F_{df1, df2}	p	P, η²	F_{df1, df2}	p	P, η²	F_{df1, df2}	p	P, η²
ANCOVA (covariate T0)	4,107_1,151*	0,044	0,026	4,386_1,151*	0,038	0,028	-	-	-	4,574_1,150*	0,034	0,029
ANCOVA (covariates T0 and PS)	1,424_1,150	0,235	0,009	1,405_1,150	0,238	0,009	0,006_1,150	0,939	0,000	4,050_1,150*	0,046	0,026

Key: Mean, mean value; SD, standard deviation; Scale from 0 = "strongly disagree" to 3 = "strongly agree" (see appendix); T, test statistic; Cohen’s d, effect size; F, test statistic; p, probability—* statistically significant at 5% level; interpretation of effect size (ES): partial eta-squared (η²) ≥ 0.0099 = small ES, partial (η²) ≥ 0.0588 = medium ES and partial (η²) ≥ 0.1379 = large ES

ISSN: 1472-6963