The efficacy of confrontational naming treatments for aphasia: a meta-analysis

Abstract

BackgroundPrevious systematic reviews and meta-analyses have only mentioned a few confrontational naming treatment methods. There is no recent literature on the effect of different treatment methods and on comparing their efficacy with each other.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to: a) collect treatment methods for addressing confrontational naming deficits in patients with aphasia; b) examine the number of studies on treatment methods; c) evaluate the level of evidence for these treatment methods; d) determine the efficacy of the explored treatment methods; and e) compare various treatment methods.MethodsWe searched Scopus, ISI Web of Sciences, PubMed, Cochrane Library, ProQuest, Clinical Key, Science Direct, and Springer electronic databases for articles published from January 2009 to March 2023. A meta-analysis was conducted using comprehensive meta-analysis (CMA2) software. A funnel plot was applied to examine the influence of outliers. Furthermore, Cochran's Q test and the I-square (I2) index were utilized to assess the homogeneity of effect sizes in the included studies.ResultsOf the 1808 articles identified, 66 were included in the final synthesis (1496 participants). Among the studies reviewed, 62.69 were found to have high effect sizes, 19.40 had medium effect sizes, and 17.91 showed an effect size of less than 0.3, indicating low efficacy. The syntactic cueing method, errorless learning, and action observation methods had high effect sizes (E.S = 0.93, E.S = 0.89, E.S = 0.88, respectively). The personalized cueing method had low effect sizes (E.S = 0.22).ConclusionsThis systematic review extracted and compared various treatment methods for naming deficits in individuals with aphasia. Evidence has shown that syntactic cueing, errorless learning, and action observation methods have the highest effect size and are, therefore, the most effective. Additionally, the SFA and gestural methods are effective interventions, considering the abundance of studies, high level of evidence, and substantial effect size.