Objectives: To compare satisfaction among Spanish-speaking mothers who did and did not use telephonic interpreters during pediatric visits, and to examine resident physician attitudes about telephonic interpreter use.
Design, setting, participants and interventions: Anonymous surveys were administered to 98 mothers limited in English proficiency and presenting for well-baby visits in an urban university hospital-affiliated practice. Pediatric visits were performed by 24 non-Spanish-proficient pediatric residents. The first 46 women (baseline cohort) received routine services, including ad-hoc interpretation or no interpretation; the second 52 women (intervention cohort) used a dual-headset telephonic interpreter service.
Outcome measures: Mothers completed postvisit interviews assessing overall satisfaction, comfort and ease of communication. Pediatric residents completed self-administered questionnaires assessing attitudes about and experience with telephonic interpretation.
Results: The intervention cohort overwhelmingly rated telephonic interpretation as "very helpful" (94%), indicating the visit would have been "harder" without the service (98%). Significantly more intervention cohort mothers reported it was "very easy" to communicate with the physician (83% vs. 22%, P < 0.01), they understood "all" that the physician told them (97% vs. 80%, P < 0.05) and they were "very satisfied" with the clinic overall (85% vs. 57%, P < 0.05). Almost all intervention cohort mothers (96%) reported a preference to use telephonic interpretation at their subsequent visit; however, only one-third of residents believed their patients would prefer to use the telephonic interpreter in the future.
Conclusions: Mothers who used telephonic interpretation reported significantly greater communication and overall satisfaction compared to mothers in routine care. Pediatric residents substantially underestimated their patients' desire to use telephonic interpreters.