Language Barriers In Health Care

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Language barriers can be confronting and distressing for CALD patients when using health services as it limits communication levels between both groups. Komaric, Bedford and Driel (2012) reported that patients with limited English proficiency has difficulty conveying their health care need and understanding the information given my health professionals. This reflects what I observed when one of my patient couldn’t communicate because he could only speak Arabic. Komaric et al (2012) also describe this barrier as worrisome for patient when they couldn’t understand their disease and this would often impact their treatment process. This is exhibited when my patient was anxious because he did do not understand that he was due for an appointment …show more content…

Bischoff and Hudelson (2010) revealed that patients who used interpreters to solve the communication problem found it to be stressful because they were unsure if the quality of information being conversed was correct. I have observed this with my patient whose body language and expression revealed their uncertainty during the exchange of their medical follow-up. The study done consisted of one hundred and five participants but the method was limited to a survey approach done through mail. However, similarly to these findings, Komaric et al (2012) found that interpreting can be futile if the medical terminology from English language into the other cultural language did not exist in their language. At this point, patients may start to blame themselves for their limited English proficiency and low health literacy and this will lead to psychological stress for the patient (Komaric et al, 2012). Hadziabic & Hjelm (2014) have also discovered that utilisation of interpreters can make patients feel uncomfortable about openly sharing their health concerns especially regarding their body and this could also relate to cultural reasons. This study has a small sample size of thirteen and only one cultural focus group. This reflects my observation of a patient who would rather wait for the family to translate then an interpreter because they felt self-conscious with another reason relating to their cultural in which the patient was from an Arabic background. Despite this, Johnstone & Kanitsaki (2009) is another study that also found that patients did feel embarrassed when they had to rely on other families members to interpret especially on children which they found were ‘inappropriate relatives’. In regards to interpreters provided by health service Hadziabic, Heikkila, Albin and Hjelm (2009) disclosed that CALD patient were stressed about confidentiality,

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