ArticleBMC medical education2019
Language of written medical educational materials for non-English speaking populations: an evaluation of a simplified bi-lingual approach.
Article in BMC medical education, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Access improvement in healthcare: a 12-step framework for operational practice.Frontiers in health services · 2024Pooled it
- Impact of armed conflict on health professionals' education and training in Syria: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2023Pooled it
- Effect of choice of instruction language on anatomy learning outcomes.Anatomical sciences education · 2026Article
- Arab Medical Students' Attitudes Toward the Arabization of Medical Education: A Multiregional Cross-Sectional Study.Advances in medical education and practice · 2026Article
- English Enhancing Exercises: An effective strategy to upgrade and enhance the English proficiency of medical students in non-English speaking countries.Pakistan journal of medical sciences · 2025Article
- Female healthcare undergraduates' scientific readiness for raising breast cancer awareness in Syrian conservative community.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Assessing eye health knowledge and practices amongst primary health care nurses in a rural district, South Africa .F1000Research · 2024Article
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions and epigenetic aging in adults: Protocol for a scoping review.PloS one · 2024Article
- Embracing bilingualism in medical education: Integrating Arabic for enhanced understanding in the Arab world.Qatar medical journal · 2024Article
- Decisional Needs of People From Minority Ethnic Groups Around Living Donor Kidney Transplantation: A UK Healthcare Professionals' Perspective.Transplant international : official journal of the European Society for Organ Transplantation · 2023Article
- Benefits of a bilingual web-based anatomy atlas for nursing students in learning anatomy.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Complex motivations of Japanese medical students to an online medical English course during the COVID-19 pandemic.MedEdPublish (2016) · 2022Article
- Self-Reported Clinical Practice of Small Animal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Compliance With RECOVER Guidelines Among Veterinarians in Eight Western European Regions.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2022Article
- Syrian medical, dental and pharmaceutical publication in the last decade: A bibliometric analysis.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2021Review
- A North-South-South partnership in higher education to develop health research capacity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: the challenge of finding a common language.Health research policy and systems · 2021Article
- The impact of the English medical curriculum on medical history taking from Arabic speaking patients by medical students.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2021Article
- Research on Higher English Internationalization Education Model and Evaluation Index System Based on Multi-Source Information Fusion.Computational intelligence and neuroscience · 2021Article
- The substantial awareness role of web-based and social media platforms in developing countries during a pandemic scenario: the example of COVID-19.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDebates have arisen in various non-English speaking countries over the chosen language of instruction in medical education, whether it has to be the English language or the mother tongue. English-based education supporters argue that English is the leading international language of medicine and research, and a crucial tool for Continuing Medical Education (CME), as well as for students who seek practice abroad. On the other hand, mother-tongue-based medical education supporters present it as a way to endorse communication and comprehension between medical practitioners and health care system users, to bridge the gap between practitioners and the paramedical staff, and to overcome linguistic dualism and the language thinking disparity while studying in another. This study aimed to evaluate one of the simplified bi-lingual approaches in terms of medical-educational-written texts for a non-English speaking population: Arabic speaking medical students in specific.
methods1546 Arabic-speaking-medical students from different countries participated in a one-step-interactive-experimental-online test. The test assessed participants' scientific comprehension of three distinct written paragraphs: The first paragraph used conventional mother tongue (Arabic), the second combined English terminology and simplified mother tongue (hybrid), and the third used an English excerpt (English). Two multiple-choice questions (First question in Arabic, second in English) followed each paragraph. Response time was communicated for each paragraph. Participants were asked to select their favorable method. Repeated Measures ANOVA models and Paired Samples t-Test were used for statistical analysis.
resultsParticipants scored a mean of [0.10] for the Arabic paragraph, [0.72] for the hybrid paragraph, and [0.24] for the English paragraph (P < 0.001). Results showed a significantly higher mean of points and correct answers within the fastest time for the hybrid paragraph [0.68] compared to the Arabic [0.08] and English [0.18] paragraphs (P < 0.001). Moreover, 50% of participants preferred the hybrid paragraph over the other two paragraphs.
conclusionsTaking into consideration the large number of participants and the statistically significant results, authors propose that simplified Arabic combined with English terminology may present a viable alternative method for medical-educational-written texts in Arabic-speaking population.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.