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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director)
A new Canadian study has highlighted the importance of being cared for in your mother tongue. According to the researchers, speaking the same language as your doctor in the hospital would reduce the risk of death.
According to data from the ICES, conducted in collaboration with the Institut du Savoir Montfort and the Montfort hospital, speaking the same language as your doctor helps improve the health of hospitalized patients. The results of the study were published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).
The study was conducted among 189,690 adults admitted to hospital in Ontario, Canada’s most populous linguistically diverse province, between April 2010 and 2018.
The doctor-patient relationship requires mutual understanding
According to the study, frail and elderly patients admitted to hospital who received care from doctors who spoke their native language were less likely to die. Most of them stayed in the hospital for less time and had fewer falls, and had fewer infections. The quality and safety of hospital care therefore improves when doctors and patients speak the same language.
According to Dr Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician, “the doctor-patient relationship requires mutual understanding, whether to make a diagnosis, to explain a treatment, or even to improve compliance (monitoring of a treatment, editor’s note). It is very anxiety-provoking for the patient to have the impression of not being understood by the practitioner”.
“Being treated in one’s mother tongue makes the diagnosis more precise, the observance more effective, and consequently the state of health better”concludes the emergency doctor.
54% lower risk of death
Since the study was conducted in an officially bilingual country, Canada, the people in the study considered to be allophones (whose mother tongue is a foreign language) were those who spoke neither French nor English. According to the researchers, these allophones had a 54% lower risk of death when the doctor spoke their language.
In response to these compelling results, lead study author Emily Seale explained the importance of adapting patient care services: “We need to do more to ensure that patients are heard and understood, whether by referring them to doctors who speak their language or by using interpretation and translation services”.