Not Just “Getting by”: Factors Influencing Providers’ Choice of Interpreters

Organizing Language Interpreting Services in Elderly and Emergency Healthcare

“…The results in this study also confirm previous findings showing that healthcare institutions need to realize that interpreting issues is a complex linguistic, communicative (Janson & Wadensjö 2014) and social practice with a complexity that needs to be handled through the whole organization and also on a national level (Hadziabdic et al 2011;Janson & Wadensjö 2014;Hsieh 2015).…”

“…One study in hospital care argue that the organizing of interpreters is a complex issue, influenced by and depending on both therapeutic and ethical factors, such as lack of time, disruption in the scheduled care and overburdening at the unit. The study found that both interpersonal aspects and organizational aspects affect the decision for healthcare professionals in the routines for the use of interpreters (Hsieh 2015). Another study of organizational disadvantages in primary healthcare showed that most problems were related to organizational issues or to interpreters' limited language competence (Hadziabdic et al 2011).…”

“…Furthermore, the use of interpreters in healthcare has been investigated from a migrant perspective (Hadziabdic et al 2009;Ramsey et al 2012;Krupic et al 2016) and from a healthcare staff perspective (Hadziabdic et al 2010;Krupic et al 2017). There have also been studies identifying problems when using interpreter in healthcare (Hadziabdic et al 2011;Krupic et al 2016) and investigating factors influencing the provider's choice of interpreter (Hsieh 2015). Studies have been found regarding the interpreter's role and behaviour during healthcare encounters (Leanza 2005;Hsieh 2008;Hsieh & Kramer 2012;Hadziabdic & Hjelm 2016).…”

Professional Medical Interpreters Influence the Quality of Acute Ischemic Stroke Care for Patients Who Speak Languages Other than English

“…Treating clinicians may have perceived a lack of available PMIs, experienced time constraints, or preferred to communicate through other means including ad hoc interpretation by patients’ family members or other hospital staff 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Aligned with the literature, a survey study of 82 neurology clinicians at our institution showed that participants had high satisfaction with but inconsistent use of PMI services because of factors such as perceived time constraints, limited amount of video‐interpretation equipment, and inconsistent availability of face‐to‐face PMI services, which seemed to be clinicians’ PMI modality of choice 29.…”

Conceptualizing the Pathways and Processes Between Language Barriers and Health Disparities: Review, Synthesis, and Extension

“…Although available access to professional interpreters contributes to patient satisfaction, patients may decline to utilize professional medical interpreters because they may (a) be motivated to avoid embarrassment caused by their lack of understanding, (b) not notice the needs of medical interpreters, (c) be aware of possible discriminations attached to language barriers, or (d) be prompted to reduce waiting time for medical interpreters [54,63,64]. Because clinicians are often not trained to collaborate with professional medical interpreters, they underuse professional interpreters and either get by with their own second language skills or employ ad hoc interpreters (e.g., family members, friends, or staff members in the hospital) because of (a) the positive beliefs about one's own proficiency in patients' native language, (b) their and patients' preference for direct clinician-patient communication, (c) the perceived convenience and effectiveness of ad hoc interpreters, (d) the perceived long waiting time to utilize medical interpreters, (e) their unfamiliarity with and distrust of medical interpreters, (f) perceived cost for hiring professional interpreters, and/or (g) their concerns for the colleagues' (medical interpreters') busy schedule [5,38,55,[65][66][67][68][69]. Despite clinicians' positive perceptions toward ad hoc interpreters [36], they do not provide optimal effectiveness because ad hoc interpreters are less likely to be continuously present in every procedure (e.g., exam room).…”