Bailey Stacy Cooper, Agarwal Nisha, Sleath Betsy, Gumusoglu Serena, Wolf Michael S
Division of General Internal Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611, USA.
J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2011 Nov;22(4):1131-43. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2011.0145.
Language barriers between patients and providers adversely affect quality of care and a patient's ability to obtain, understand, and act on health information. Health care organizations are mandated by law to provide language concordant services. While health systems have taken steps to promote language access, minimal effort has been made to improve pharmacy practice. This is problematic, as patient misunderstanding of prescription drug instructions is a root cause of many adverse drug events occurring annually in outpatient settings. Enhanced, language concordant prescription labeling and counseling is needed to promote safe use of prescription medications among limited English proficient patients.
患者与医疗服务提供者之间的语言障碍会对医疗质量以及患者获取、理解健康信息并据此采取行动的能力产生不利影响。法律规定医疗保健机构必须提供语言匹配的服务。虽然医疗系统已采取措施促进语言服务的可及性，但在改善药学实践方面所做的努力却微乎其微。这是个问题，因为患者对处方药说明的误解是门诊环境中每年发生许多药物不良事件的根本原因。需要加强语言匹配的处方标签和咨询服务，以促进英语水平有限的患者安全使用处方药。
