Addressing language barriers to health care, a survey of medical services in Switzerland

Abstract

Two descriptive, quantitative cross-sectional surveys including all services of internal medicine and psychiatric services examined how Swiss medical services address the problem of language barriers in health care and how they respond to the high number of allophone patients. Of all the medical services (MS), 244 responded to the questionnaire (Internal medicine: 166; Psychiatry: 78; overall response rate 86.6%). Half of them (51%) estimated the proportion of allophone to the total number of patients at 1-5%. Only 4% of the MS collected statistics on the number of allophone patients (2 internal medicine, 8 psychiatric services). A third of the MS perceive communication with allophone patients as significantly difficult. Only 14% often use qualified interpreters, while 79% often use relatives, 75% often health staff, 43% often employees. Qualified interpreters are less frequently used in internal medicine than in psychiatry. There is an expressed need for qualified interpreters speaking Albanian, Bosnian/Serbo-croat, Tamil and Kurdish. Only 11% of the studied MS have a budget for interpreters, and 17% have access on an interpreter service. 48% express the need to have access to interpreter services. There is a need to raise the awareness of health professionals on the advantages of having access to trained interpreters and on the limits of using relatives as translators. This calls for coordination at national level, policy development and training, in order to ensure adequate communication and quality care for migrants.