Counseling in a different language: An analysis of experiences and resources in multilingual genetic counseling

Abstract

This study set out to investigate the experiences of bilingual/multilingual genetic counselors in the United States and Canada who have counseled in a non‐English language and characterize their training experiences to identify potential areas for improvement. A total of 32 bilingual and/or multilingual genetic counselors completed online surveys. Approximately 83% of participants typically counsel patients in languages for which they believe their proficiency is at least good without the participation of an interpreter. Challenges to providing language‐concordant care include insufficient patient‐facing translation tools/resources, with roughly half reporting they have created their own resources out of necessity. For training programs, there was a strong desire for more supervision in bilingual/multilingual genetic counseling students' non‐English language during training to help foster genetics‐related language skills development.