Preferred Patient Language and Obstetrical Outcomes [25N

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Obstetrical outcomes as quality of care indicators are coming under increased scrutiny from various stakeholders. patients, regulatory and quality reporting institutions as well as third party payers are demanding reporting and improvements against national and local benchmarks. Three of the most important outcome measures in obstetrics are: cesarean section, episiotomy and operative vaginal delivery rates. Observations in one community teaching hospital unit raised the question of whether patients' preferred language had an adverse impact on these outcomes. METHODS: Data was retrospectively collected from July 2015 ‒ December 2015 that included patient preferred language, rates of cesarean section, episiotomy and operative vaginal delivery rates. RESULTS: Patients were separated into two groups: English speaking and non-English speaking. Data revealed that non-English speaking patients had a higher rate of cesarean section, episiotomy and operative vaginal delivery. Non-English patients had a 46% rate of cesarean section compared to 36% in English speaking patients, 12% rate of operative vaginal delivery compared to 5%, and a 9% rate of episiotomy compared to 6% of English speaking patients. CONCLUSION: These data show that non-English speaking patients have higher rates of cesarean section, operative vaginal delivery and episiotomy when compared to English speaking patients. While causation may not deduced purely from these data, it necessitates further investigation into quality of patient care regarding effective communication in non-English speaking patients.