Minimising Language Barrier in Healthcare Communication

Research Topic 2
Minimising language barrier when communicating with clients
Topic 2 – Background
Read before starting your assignment
You are a new enrolled nurse working in a public hospital located in a big city. A large number of the hospital’s clients do not speak
English fluently and some of your colleagues find it difficult to communicate with those clients.
In order to improve communication with non-English speakers, your nurse manager has asked you to research ways to minimise
language barrier in the workplace and to inform your colleagues about your findings.
Plan the research activity
1. In order to complete this assessment, you need to identify TWO (2) areas related to the topic below where research can
help support and improve your own practice as an EN.
Topic: Minimising language barrier when communicating with clients
Australia is the multicultural society; therefore health care workers face challenges due to language barrier when explaining health conditions to
the patients. Two of the areas that can be used to improve the nurse’s practice would be –
 Communication with non-English speaking patients
 Communicating with patients of diverse cultural norms and linguistic needs
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2. Identify the reason(s) for undertaking your research from the list below.
 You may select several reasons.
 Provide a brief rationale for each.
E.g. reasons: Comparison / hypothesis testing / trend identification / own knowledge extension / strengthen quality of own
practice.
The reason to undertake this research is to enhance personal awareness of communication issues in multicultural health care setting. It will
help overcome the issue of misdiagnosis in future and possible medication error due to miscommunication with culturally diverse patients. It will
help in gaining insights into communication skills required to deliver safe and high quality care. The purpose of this study is to learn the impact of
the language barriers and the patient’s health outcomes. It will help me learn strategies to overcome this issue
According to Norouzinia et al. (2016) patients coming from countries like Iran may have one formal language but multiple dialects that acts as
language barrier between nurse and patients. Moreover, there is bulk of literature highlighting the high level of communication barriers existing
when dealing with the patients from the diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic barriers. It was also highlighted by Mapedzahama et al. (2012) that
the black migrant nurses in Australia reclaim challenges when dealing with the patients from the non English-speaking background. Language
barriers leads to wide variety of risky situations related to the pain management, medication management, and patient- nurse interaction
concerning diagnosis, fluid-balance management as well as risk communication and acute situations (van Rosse et al. 2016).
3. Write a clear statement highlighting your research question or hypothesis.
It may include:
 Nursing interventions applicable to the topic
 Client perceptions of the provision of this topic
 Political issues confronting nursing practice and health care provision in relation to the topic
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An example of a question (the student can NOT use this example), would be:
Does a ward communication tool is time efficient to communicate with CALD people?
An example of a hypothesis (the student can NOT use this example), would be:
CALD clients are less likely to complain about pain than English speaking clients.
Q). Can training and education on cross cultural skills help overcome language barriers in emergency ward and prevent wrong diagnosis?
Hypothesis
Nurses may face difficulty in explaining the heath conditions to patients from non-English background. The patients are less likely to experience
the positive health care outcomes due to language barriers between them and nurses. They may undergo misdiagnosis. Communication skills
training for nurses may help better communicate with the culturally diverse patients about the health conditions and improve the health
outcomes.
4. Establish and define the general research objective.
Tips:
 A research objective summarises what is to be achieved by the study.
 Ensure your objective is S.M.A.R.T and relevant, logical, feasible, observable and measurable.
 The objective should be clearly phrased – use verbs, e.g. to assess, to establish, to determine, to compare, etc.
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If non-English speaking patients are not able to communicate their needs, nurses may develop misconceptions regarding the symptoms,
ailments, medical history, which, may lead to misconceptions. Extreme misconceptions may create high chance of medical error. The likeliness of
the medical error is high if there is no medical interpreter available. Poor communication due to language barrier or low proficiency to speak
English may prevent patient to discuss their cultural needs or health beliefs (Flores et al. 2012).
Effective relationship with patient is built when there is optimal communication despite cultural and linguist diversity. It helps people from
multicultural and diverse ethnic background to verbalise their health concerns. It will also help nurses to communicate about interventions
considering the diverse cultural values and beliefs.
I personally believe that the nurses must be culturally sensitive and demonstrate interest to learn the needs of the patients from multicultural
background. The objective here is having awareness will help nurses to learn the impact of miscommunication due to language barriers on the
patient health.
5. Identify ONE (1) other discipline that could be connected to this research activity.
 Briefly explain your choice of discipline.
Medical interpreters are recruited in various hospitals as they can well speak in English as well as other languages (Juckett and Unger 2014). They
help provide translations services to the patients in Emergency ward. Therefore, medical interpreters can be other discipline that aid in
communication issues between nurses and cultural and linguistically diverse patients. It means this research study is well connected with the
discipline of medical interpreter. It will facilitate the needs and concerns of the patients from multicultural background. This discipline may be
useful in overcoming the issue of medical or diagnostic errors.
6. In order to gather information about the research topic, you will need to access credible sources of data and evidence.
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