Exploring language barriers to Evidence-based Health Care (EBHC) in post-graduate medical students: a randomised trial.
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.
Letelier
L M
LM
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. lmletel@med.puc.cl
Zamarin
N
N
Andrade
M
M
Gabrielli
L
L
Caiozzi
G
G
Viviani
P
P
Riquelme
A
A
D003144:Communication Barriers; D032882:Comprehension; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires