Hablamos Español: crossing communication barriers with the Latino population

This article outlines the retrospective study of a pilot project to teach Spanish phrases related to health care to students of an associate degree nursing program. This project was initiated in response to the documented increase in the Latino population in upstate South Carolina. In the decade from 1990 to 2000, four counties in this region documented increases in the Latino population at greater than 60%. The nursing faculty began teaching simple Spanish phrases prior to each lecture and provided opportunities for students to earn extra credit points on unit examinations for correct translations. The planning and implementation process is described, and descriptive statistics are documented to provide a basic evaluation of success rates for the participating students. The focus of this project was to facilitate communication with Latino clients by teaching students common phrases and simple questions in the Spanish language.