Abstract
BACKGROUND: Understanding the written English language might be a barrier when teaching Evidence-based Health Care (EBHC) to Spanish-speaking physicians.
AIM: To quantify the magnitude of this potential barrier.
METHOD: Cochrane Review abstracts in English or in Spanish were randomly distributed among first-year residents at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Chile. Residents answered investigator-designed questionnaires to measure their comprehension while the time needed to complete the task was recorded.
RESULTS: Groups were similar at baseline. Mean score for those reading in Spanish was 11.9 +/- 2.8 (range 5 to 18) compared to 10.5 +/- 3.8 (range 1 to 17) for those reading in English (p=0.04). Low scores ( pound 9) were twice as frequent for the English group than for the Spanish group (16.7% vs 34.7%; p=0.042). The time to complete the task was also longer for the group reading in English.
CONCLUSION: Language should be taken into account when teaching EBHC to Spanish-speaking physicians.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 82 |
| Journal | Education for Health: Change in Learning and Practice |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| State | Published - Nov 2007 |
Keywords
- Communication Barriers
- Comprehension
- Education, Medical, Graduate
- Evidence-Based Medicine/education
- Humans
- Language
- Surveys and Questionnaires