Testing the use of translation apps to overcome everyday healthcare communication in Australian aged‐care hospital wards—An exploratory study

Hwang, Kerry; Williams, Sue; Zucchi, Emiliano; Chong, Terence W.H.; Mascitti-Meuter, Monita; LoGiudice, Dina; Goh, Anita; Panayiotou, Anita; Batchelor, Frances

doi:10.1002/nop2.1099

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…There are well-recognized breakers of language barriers to healthcare [ 1 , 2 ], such as professional interpreting service [ 27 – 29 ], language training of healthcare providers [ 30 ], or medical translation apps [ 31 , 32 ], which are nonetheless relevant mainly to LEP (Limited English Proficiency) in recent and remote immigrants in English-speaking resource-rich countries like the United States, Australia, and United Kingdom [ 29 , 31 – 33 ]. The recommended interventions are, therefore, far to be practical in dialectically diverse countries like India [ 9 ] or China.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic barriers and healthcare in China: Chaoshan vs. Mandarin

Zhang

Jiang

Xie

et al. 2022

BMC Health Serv Res

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Background China has 129 dialects with Mandarin as the standard and Chaoshan as the major dialect of the Chaoshan region in Guangdong. This study aimed to describe the dialect competence and usage, communication difficulty, impact of linguistic barriers, and subjective experience in healthcare. Methods Healthcare providers (n = 234) and healthcare consumers (n = 483) at two tertiary teaching hospitals in Shantou, Chaoshan region participated in an anonymous survey. Results Chaoshan and Mandarin were spoken respectively by ca. 80% and 6.1% of the participants. Monolinguals accounted for 28.5%, including 16.8% of Chaoshan-speaking healthcare providers and 18% of Mandarin-speaking healthcare consumers. The monolinguals preferentially used their competent dialect (Ps < 0.001) and had significant communication difficulties (Ps < 0.0001), with the mean (SD) score of 3.06 (0.96) out of 4 with Mandarin for healthcare providers and 2.18 (1.78) and 1.64 (1.40) with Mandarin and Chaoshan, respectively, for healthcare consumers. The monolingual healthcare providers perceived significant negative impacts of linguistic barriers on the entire healthcare delivery process (Ps < 0.0001). Regression analyses showed the length of stay in the Chaoshan region as a protective factor of linguistic barrier with a limited protective effect. Conclusions This is the first report of significant linguistic barriers in healthcare imposed by Mandarin and Chaoshan dialects in Chaoshan, China. With perceived adverse impacts on the entire healthcare delivery and risks to the healthcare quality and burden, interventions such as professional interpreter service, service-learning interpreter program, or mobile interpreting apps that are medically accurate and culturally sensitive are suggested for dialectally diverse China.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic barriers and healthcare in China: Chaoshan vs. Mandarin

Zhang

Jiang

Xie

et al. 2022

BMC Health Serv Res

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“…The app is free and supports over 100 languages worldwide, but to our knowledge, none of the translation apps support Southern Min (or Taiwanese Hokkien). A translation app may help nursing facility staff to complete their work tasks more easily, but it is still not accurate enough to be trustworthy in translating medical terminology [39,40]. These apps could still serve as a free initial mode of translation between Vietnamese and Mandarin and vice versa.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elderly Caregiving Quality Improvement: A Pilot Study of the Burdens of Vietnamese Caregivers in Taiwan

Lyver

2022

IJERPH

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Taiwan is expected to reach super-aged status by 2026, leading to an increased demand for elderly caregiving services. Low local unemployment and a dwindling working-age population mean the island’s care system relies heavily on female foreign domestic workers (FDWs) from Southeast Asian neighbors such as Vietnam to satisfy labor shortages. Although suggested by anecdotal evidence, limited research has been conducted on the link between the shortfall in FDW qualifications, training, preparedness, and expertise and their employment stressors. Therefore, this study aims to assist FDWs by evaluating their stressors and helping them better understand health care delivery by (1) administering the Modified Caregiver Strain Index (MCSI) revised 2003 questionnaire, (2) performing semi-structured in-depth one-on-one interviews, (3) classifying interview results according to thematic analysis, and (4) using these themes to devise and deliver a 12-week multilingual health education teach-back program. Our results indicate that Vietnamese FDWs face specific challenges, including language barriers, homesickness, intensive physical and psychological work demands, stress adaptation, and occupational exposures. Despite yielding no significant improvements in caregiving strain, our intervention, conducted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, pinpoints and classifies areas of grave concern and proposes recommendations that can assist long-term care (LTC) stakeholders in understanding and overcoming their respective challenges, thereby improving the quality of elderly care.

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“…In an attempt to overcome the difficulties posed by language barriers in healthcare settings, various domain-specific applications have been developed over the last twenty years with a view to improving delivery of care to patients from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds [1,4,18,26]. Further to this, a range of mobile translation applications developed specifically for providing communication support to both staff and patients unable to speak the dominant language of the healthcare setting have been subject to formal evaluation as to their effectiveness in practice [11,20,21,24,29]. Despite these developments, commercial MT in general and Google Translate in particular remain prevalent in both academic and grey literature discussing the use of technologies in healthcare settings [3,6,7,8,14,16,22,27].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Exploration of Risk in the Use of MT in Healthcare Settings with Abbreviations as a Use Case

Taylor-Stilgoe,

Orăsan,

do Carmo

2023

Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Informed Translation and Interpreting Technology 2023

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When faced with language barriers, UK healthcare staff have found themselves turning to machine translation (MT)predominantly Google Translate to fulfil their duty of care to patients [3,16,23]. Despite the risks potentially posed by the use of MT in such complex and sensitive situations, little research currently exists as to healthcare staff awareness of these risks in real-life settings. This gap is particularly notable concerning the use of MT with patient medical record information compared with interpersonal situations and patient-oriented documentation [6,7,8,14,16,22,27]. While research has been conducted into the perceptions and practices of the general population concerning MT use in largely lower-stakes contexts [31], research on the extent to which these transfer to higher-stakes settings remains lacking. The contribution this paper aims to make is therefore twofold: to investigate the impact of MT on patient medical record documentation and to explore the extent to which healthcare staff are aware of the risks potentially posed by its use. In this paper, we selected contextualised medical abbreviation examples from authoritative French and Spanish clinical corpora [9,15] to serve as a use case, abbreviations having previously been shown to pose an increased risk for patient harm even prior to their translation with Google Translate [2,5, 12,19,25,28]. Examples containing higher-risk MT errors were presented to healthcare staff to ascertain their perceptions and risk awareness as part of semistructured interviews. Whilst these interviews remain ongoing, this paper presents the findings on risks identified in the use of MT with patient medical documentation, and the responses obtained thus far.

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Testing the use of translation apps to overcome everyday healthcare communication in Australian aged‐care hospital wards—An exploratory study

Cited by 13 publications

References 39 publications

Linguistic barriers and healthcare in China: Chaoshan vs. Mandarin

Linguistic barriers and healthcare in China: Chaoshan vs. Mandarin

Elderly Caregiving Quality Improvement: A Pilot Study of the Burdens of Vietnamese Caregivers in Taiwan

An Exploration of Risk in the Use of MT in Healthcare Settings with Abbreviations as a Use Case

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