Health information and education needs for youth with complex communication needs during the Covid-19 pandemic: rehabilitation professionals' perspectives

Purpose The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted inequities faced by persons with complex communication needs (CCN) in accessing health information and education. This study reports on the perspectives of South African rehabilitation professionals regarding access to health information and education for youth with CCN. Materials and methods Two asynchronous online written focus groups were conducted with 15 rehabilitation professionals. Participants' contributions were thematically analysed. Results Participants reported that youth with CCN faced a variety of challenges when accessing health information, related, amongst others, to the format and quality of the information. Participants reported on strategies they had successfully used to support comprehension of health information and the youth's communication during healthcare encounters. Participants suggested various Covid-19-related and general health topics of value to youth, as well as a variety of multimodal and multilingual presentation formats to make health information accessible. This information was used in the development of accessible health information resources that are now freely available on the authors' institutional website. Conclusions The results confirmed that there is an urgent need to make accessible health information available in order to include South Africans with CCN in health services during the pandemic and beyond.