Relationship Between Patient-Provider Language Discordance and the Need for Professional Medical Interpretation for International Patients in Japan.

Abstract

Language barriers between patients and healthcare providers pose significant challenges in medical care in Japanese hospitals. Inadequate patient understanding of discussions with healthcare providers because of patient-provider language discordance has been reported in previous studies. There are growing expectations of professional medical interpreters to address these challenges. A previous study reported that patients with patient-provider language discordance were more likely to need interpreter assistance compared with patients with patient-provider language concordance. We conducted a cross-sectional study utilizing a questionnaire survey of foreign patients to analyze the impact of the degree of patient-provider language discordance on the degree of patient comprehension of patient-provider communication, as well as patients' need for professional medical interpreters in Japanese hospitals. From February 2022 to May 2023, an online questionnaire was distributed to 4,962 individuals aged 18 years or older who were non-native speakers of Japanese and who had attended medical institutions in Japan because of illness or injury experienced by themselves or by their children. A chi-square test and residual analysis were used to analyze the relationship between patient-provider language discordance and patient comprehension of patient-provider language concordance. Logistic regression analysis was performed to analyze the relationship between patient-provider language discordance and the necessity of professional medical interpretation. Among 4,962 study subjects who received the online survey, the total number of responses was 363 (7.3%). The rate of low-level patient comprehension was significantly higher in the patient-provider language discordance group compared with other groups. In a logistic regression model that accounted for sociodemographic factors, both the partial and complete patient-provider language discordance groups were more likely to want to use professional medical interpreters compared with the patient-provider language concordance group (OR: 4.16; 95% CI, 1.55-11.16; P=0.005; OR: 4.73; 95% CI, 1.70-13.18; P=0.003, respectively). The current findings suggest that hospitals should be better prepared to meet the potential language needs of international patients with no or limited use of Japanese in daily conversation.