Language Skills and Level of Experience among Arabic-Speaking Healthcare Interpreters in Denmark; an Explorative Study

Abstract

Background: Denmark has become a multicultural society over the past three decades, with 12.8% of the population being immigrants and their descendants. Many of these risk inequality in access to health and in health outcomes because of language barriers. The quality of healthcare interpreting services has recently been discussed by politicians and the media. The present explorative study investigated the sociodemographic characteristics, level of experience and linguistic skills of Arabic-speaking healthcare interpreters in Denmark. Method: Snowball sampling (including social media) was used to recruit interpreters. Data were collected through individual telephone interviews based on an interview guide containing structured and semi-structured questions. Interpreters' language skills were assessed subjectively based on the flow of the interview and preferred interview language.Results: Of the 232 professional Arabic-speaking healthcare interpreters interviewed 21% were assessed as having adequate skills in both Danish and Arabic, 40% we assessed as having inadequate skills in both languages. Only 6% of interpreters born in Denmark had adequate language skills in both languages. Conclusion:A large proportion of Arabic-speaking healthcare interpreters appear to have inadequate language skills in Danish or Arabic or both. Interpreters born in Denmark do not appear to have better skills than those born elsewhere. There is an urgent need to screen interpreters to identify those who are unfit for healthcare interpretation. Those eligible should receive additional training, including technical language skills. All interpreters should be required to undergo testing of their linguistic skills to work professionally as healthcare interpreters.

The impact of a health introduction course for medical interpreters in the healthcare sector

“…While most of our participants increased their knowledge score after participating in the health introduction course, those with the least interpreting experience increased their knowledge score the most. Itani et al 4 also found that longer interpreting experience was associated with greater likelihood of having adequate language skills for effective communication. The open-ended questions in our project revealed that some of the experienced interpreters felt they did not gain new knowledge or skills from participating in the course, suggesting a need for an additional course aiming at a higher level of interpretation training.…”

“…3 Interpreters' skills and knowledge regarding language, ethics and confidentiality vary considerably. 4 Ad hoc interpreters such as family members and friends are often used in the healthcare sector, 5 with potentially negative consequences for both the patient and the family interpreter. 6,7 Nevertheless, the use of professional medical interpreters is low in many clinical settings.…”

“…20 Many interpreters lack knowledge about health terminology and the Danish healthcare system, which has consequences for patients in the form of misunderstandings, mistreatments and in terms of patient safety. 4,19 Currently, interpreters acquire their knowledge mainly from lessons taught by external educators at interpreter agencies. 19 The aim of this study was to examine the impact on interpreters' knowledge and skills after they participated in a health introduction course in a hospital setting.…”

Interpreters' experiences of participating in an introduction course in the healthcare sector. An ethnographic field observation study

“…According to the interpreters participating in our study, following training participants were important: (a) knowledge about how and where to get support, (b) supervision in difficult interpreting situations; and (c) knowledge and competencies on how to translate vulnerable diagnoses and sensitive patient situations and reactions. Another Danish study underlined the importance of all interpreters to undergo testing of their linguistic skills, to be able to work professionally as healthcare interpreters (Itani et al., 2017). However, linguistic skills alone are not enough.…”

Register-based study concerning the problematic situation of using interpreting service in a region in Sweden

“…This study indicates the need for structures in the organization that support healthcare professionals to write incidents reports concerning failure in the interpreter service as a part of systematic quality work [26], because communication is considered as an important area for the improvement of patient involvement in matters of patient safety [33]. Challenges in communication through interpreters have been described as being related to interpreters’ personal characteristics such as linguistic competence [21, 34, 35] and professional attitude and to the organizational context of interpreting practice, including the availability of laws, policy and guidelines [21, 35]. Failure in interpreting practice may lead to inadequate communication, which in turn may cause delayed care [15], limited access to diagnoses, diagnostic testing and treatment [36].…”