The Journal of The Norwegian Medical Association, Oslo, Norway
The Journal of The Norwegian Medical Association, Oslo, Norway.
BMJ Open. 2021 Jun 10;11(6):e043444. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-043444.
English is the of science. How well doctors understand English is therefore crucial for their understanding of scientific articles. However, only 5% of the world's population have English as their first language.
Objectives: To compare doctors' comprehension of a scientific article when read in their first language (Norwegian) versus their second language (English). Our hypothesis was that doctors reading the article in Norwegian would comprehend the content better than those reading it in English.
Parallel group randomised controlled trial. We randomised doctors to read the same clinical review article in either Norwegian or English, before completing a questionnaire about the content of the article.
Conference in primary care medicine in Norway, 2018.
130 native Norwegian-speaking doctors, 71 women and 59 men. One participant withdrew before responding to the questionnaire and was excluded from the analyses.
Participants were randomly assigned to read a review article in either Norwegian (n=64) or English (n=66). Reading time was limited to 7 min followed by 7 min to answer a questionnaire.
Total score on questions related to the article content (potential range -9 to 20).
Doctors who read the article in Norwegian had a mean total score of 10.40 (SD 3.96) compared with 9.08 (SD 3.47) among doctors who read the article in English, giving a mean difference of 1.32 (95% CI 0.03 to 2.62; p=0.046). Age was independently associated with total score, with decreased comprehension with increasing age.
The difference in comprehension between the group who read in Norwegian and the group who read in English was statistically significant but modest, suggesting that the language gap in academia is possible to overcome.
英语是科学的通用语言。因此，医生对英语的理解程度对他们理解科学文章至关重要。然而，世界上只有 5%的人口将英语作为第一语言。
目的：比较医生用母语（挪威语）和第二语言（英语）阅读科学文章时的理解程度。我们的假设是，用挪威语阅读文章的医生比用英语阅读的医生能更好地理解文章内容。
平行组随机对照试验。我们将医生随机分为两组，分别用挪威语或英语阅读同一篇临床综述文章，然后完成一份关于文章内容的问卷。
2018 年挪威初级保健医学会议。
130 名母语为挪威语的医生，其中 71 名女性，59 名男性。有 1 名参与者在回答问卷前退出，被排除在分析之外。
参与者被随机分配用挪威语（n=64）或英语（n=66）阅读一篇综述文章。阅读时间限制为 7 分钟，然后用 7 分钟回答问卷。
与文章内容相关的问题的总得分（潜在范围-9 至 20）。
用挪威语阅读文章的医生平均总分为 10.40（SD 3.96），而用英语阅读的医生平均总分为 9.08（SD 3.47），平均差异为 1.32（95%CI 0.03 至 2.62；p=0.046）。年龄与总分独立相关，随着年龄的增长，理解能力下降。
用挪威语阅读的组和用英语阅读的组之间的理解差异在统计学上有显著意义，但幅度较小，这表明学术界的语言差距是可以克服的。
