Management of language discordance in clinical nursing practice — A critical review

BackgroundLanguage plays an essential role in the provision of nursing care, since successful communication is a vital prerequisite to being able to provide appropriate nursing care efficiently and effectively. It is not known what kinds of interventions are effective in overcoming language discordance in nursing practice.ObjectivesThis critical review aimed to examine the interventions that are most successfully used to overcome language discordance in nursing.DesignA critical review of the literature was performed and 24 relevant research papers were included.Data sourcesA search was carried out between January 2004 and September 2014 in MEDLINE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Psychinfo, Germanistic online, Pragmatis and Linguistic & Language Behaviour Abstracts (LLBA).Review methodsBoth authors independently screened the titles (n = 299), abstracts and full texts to decide which articles should be chosen. The inclusion criteria were: (1) articles examine the problem of language discordance in various health care settings and (2) articles published in English, German, French or Italian. Articles were included irrespective of their design. Data were analysed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program Tool (CASP).FindingsIn total, 24 publications met the inclusion criteria. Most of the studies (n = 20) were focused on the nursing intervention of using an interpreter and three were describing the nursing assessment. The study designs of the included studies were mainly non-experimental studies, qualitative studies or reviews. The only suggested intervention described in the articles is the use of ad-hoc or professional interpreters for communicating with patients who do not speak the local language.ConclusionsHealth care institutions should provide more strategies for clinical practice to overcome language discordance.