Department of Communication, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73072, USA.
Health Commun. 2013;28(6):557-67. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2012.702644. Epub 2012 Aug 13.
Understanding providers' expectations and needs for medical interpreters can provide important insight into the dynamics and process of interpreter-mediated medical encounters. This is one of the first mixed-methods studies on the similarities and differences of providers' views of interpreters across five specialties (i.e., obstetrics/gynecology, emergency medicine, oncology, mental health, and nursing). The two-stage studies include interview data with 39 providers and survey data with 293 providers. We used principal component analysis to identify three components in the survey data that represent providers' views of interpreters: Patient Ally, Health Care Professionals, and Provider Proxy. We then used the interview data as exemplars to illuminate the quantitative findings. Patient Ally was the only component that reached significant differences between different specialties. Providers from different specialty areas differ significantly in their expectations on interpreters' ability (a) to assist patients outside of medical encounters and (b) to advocate for the patient. In particular, nursing professionals place more importance on these two abilities than mental health providers and oncologists. Based on our findings, we proposed three research directions necessary to advance the field of bilingual health communication: to reevaluate and reconceptualize interpreters' appropriate performances with special attention to the Patient Ally dimension, to examine the commonly held attitudes for all providers and the potential tensions within these attitudes, and to identify contextual factors that influence participants' perceptions, evaluations, and choices of interpreters and their corresponding impacts.
了解医疗口译员在医学领域的作用和需求，可以深入了解口译介导的医患交流的动态和过程。这是首批针对五个医学专科（妇产科、急诊医学、肿瘤学、精神健康和护理）的医疗服务提供者对口译员的看法进行比较和对比的混合方法研究之一。这两项研究包括对 39 名医疗服务提供者进行访谈，以及对 293 名医疗服务提供者进行问卷调查。我们采用主成分分析法（Principal Component Analysis）从调查数据中识别出代表医疗服务提供者对口译员看法的三个组成部分：患者盟友（Patient Ally）、医疗保健专业人员（Health Care Professionals）和提供者代理（Provider Proxy）。然后，我们使用访谈数据来说明定量发现。只有“患者盟友”这一组成部分在不同专科之间存在显著差异。来自不同专科领域的提供者对口译员能力的期望存在显著差异，包括（a）在医疗接触之外协助患者，以及（b）为患者代言。特别是，护理专业人员比精神健康提供者和肿瘤学家更重视这两种能力。基于我们的研究结果，我们提出了三个需要进一步研究的方向，以推进双语健康传播领域的发展：重新评估和重新构想口译员的适当表现，特别关注“患者盟友”这一维度；研究所有医疗服务提供者共同持有的态度以及这些态度中的潜在紧张关系；并确定影响参与者对口译员的看法、评价和选择的背景因素，以及这些因素对医疗口译的影响。
