Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA.
Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA; Department of Medicine, Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center, Milwaukee, USA.
Patient Educ Couns. 2021 Aug;104(8):1978-1984. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2021.01.018. Epub 2021 Jan 21.
Professional medical interpreters facilitate patient understanding of illness, prognosis, and treatment options. Facilitating end of life discussions can be challenging. Our objective was to better understand the challenges professional medical interpreters face and how they affect the accuracy of provider-patient communication during discussions of end of life.
We conducted semi-structured interviews with professional Spanish medical interpreters. We asked about their experiences interpreting end of life discussions, including questions about values, professional and emotional challenges interpreting these conversations, and how those challenges might impact accuracy. We used a grounded theory, constant comparative method to analyze the data. Participants completed a short demographic questionnaire.
Seventeen Spanish language interpreters participated. Participants described intensive attention to communication accuracy during end of life discussions, even when discussions caused emotional or professional distress. Professional strains such as rapid discussion tempo contributed to unintentional alterations in discussion content. Perceived non-empathic behaviors of providers contributed to rare, intentional alterations in discussion flow and content.
We found that despite challenges, Spanish language interpreters focus intensively on accurate interpretation in discussions of end of life.
Provider training on how to best work with interpreters in these important conversations could support accurate and empathetic interpretation.
专业医学口译员帮助患者理解疾病、预后和治疗方案。促进临终讨论可能具有挑战性。我们的目的是更好地了解专业医学口译员面临的挑战，以及这些挑战如何影响提供方和患者在临终讨论中的沟通准确性。
我们对专业西班牙语医学口译员进行了半结构化访谈。我们询问了他们在口译临终讨论方面的经验，包括有关价值观、口译这些对话时的专业和情感挑战，以及这些挑战如何影响准确性的问题。我们使用扎根理论、不断比较的方法来分析数据。参与者完成了一份简短的人口统计学问卷。
17 名西班牙语口译员参与了研究。参与者描述了在临终讨论中对沟通准确性的高度关注，即使讨论引起了情绪或专业上的困扰。快速的讨论节奏等专业压力导致讨论内容的无意改变。提供者被认为缺乏同理心的行为导致了罕见的、有意的讨论流程和内容的改变。
我们发现，尽管面临挑战，西班牙语口译员在临终讨论中仍专注于准确口译。
为提供者提供关于如何在这些重要对话中最好地与口译员合作的培训，将有助于准确和富有同理心的口译。
