title: Exploring language barriers to Evidence-based Health Care (EBHC) in post-graduate medical students: a randomised trial.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Understanding the written English language might be a barrier when teaching Evidence-based Health Care (EBHC) to Spanish-speaking physicians.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To quantify the magnitude of this potential barrier.
  
  
  METHODS
  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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Language should be taken into account when teaching EBHC to Spanish-speaking physicians.
authors: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. lmletel@med.puc.cl
authors: L M
authors: LM
authors: Letelier
authors: N
authors: N
authors: Zamarin
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Andrade
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Gabrielli
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Caiozzi
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Viviani
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Riquelme
mesh_terms: D003144:Communication Barriers; D032882:Comprehension; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires