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A new method for evaluating the quality of medical interpretation
M Barton Laws1, Rachel Heckscher, Sandra J Mayo
1Latin American Health Institute, Boston, MA 02116, USA. Bart@LHI.org
Medical Care
|January 10, 2004
Summary
Medical interpretation quality in pediatric clinics is often poor, with over 66% of translations containing significant errors or omissions. Untrained interpreters and those engaging in non-interpretation speech acts increase error rates.
Area of Science:
- Medical Communication
- Health Services Research
- Linguistics
Background:
- Effective communication is crucial in pediatric healthcare.
- Medical interpretation services are vital for non-English speaking families.
- Assessing the quality of medical interpretation is an understudied area.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and implement a method for evaluating medical interpretation quality.
- To identify patterns and correlates of errors in medical translation.
- To analyze the impact of interpreter behavior on translation accuracy.
Main Methods:
- Observational study of audiotaped pediatric outpatient visits involving Spanish-speaking families, English-speaking providers, and interpreters.
- Transcription and segmentation of visits for analysis of translation characteristics.
- Development of an ordinal scale to measure translation quality based on nominal codes.
Main Results:
- Over 66% of segments requiring translation had substantial errors, omissions, or were untranslated.
- Interpreters engaged in non-interpretation speech acts ('role exchange') in 29.8% of segments.
- Interpretation quality was inversely associated with segment word count and 'role exchange'.
Conclusions:
- Lack of appropriate interpreter training leads to inaccurate medical interpretation.
- Interpreter engagement in speech behaviors beyond interpretation correlates with increased error rates.
- Improving interpreter training and adherence to professional roles is essential for patient safety.