ReviewOman medical journal2020
Implications of Language Barriers for Healthcare: A Systematic Review.
Review in Oman medical journal, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 427 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
427 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Causes of medication errors in community pharmacies: A meta-ethnography and systematic review.PloS one · 2026Pooled it
- Communication and medical errors: a bibliometric analysis of research trends and knowledge structures.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Psychological well-being and mental health risks in deaf and hard of hearing youth: a systematic review.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Bridging language gaps in healthcare: a systematic review of the practical implementation of neural machine translation technologies in clinical settings.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2025Pooled it
- Virtual Care Among Adults Facing Language Barriers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA network open · 2025Pooled it
- Barriers and facilitators to maternal healthcare in East Africa: a systematic review and qualitative synthesis of perspectives from women, their families, healthcare providers, and key stakeholders.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Pooled it
- Relationship between staff experience and patient outcomes in hospital settings: an overview of reviews.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- A group psychological intervention for postnatal depression in British mothers of South Asian origin - the ROSHNI-2 RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2025Trial
- Patient and clinician experiences of language barriers in Qatar's multilingual public mental health care: a qualitative study.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2026Article
- Navigating communication barriers in phlebotomy: Strategies and ethical tensions in routine care.PEC innovation · 2026Article
- Technological translation tools for official language minorities in primary and emergency care: A rapid scoping review and environmental scan.The European journal of general practice · 2026Article
- Development of a learning quality scale and associated factors among international medical students in China.Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences · 2026Article
- A Scoping Review of Health Literacy Measurement in U.S. Interventions: Trends, Tools, and Gaps.Health literacy research and practice · 2026Article
- Critical Care Nurses' Encounters With Multicultural Patients and Families in Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Study.Nursing open · 2026Article
- Multilingualism in Psychotherapists in Training in Germany: Results of a Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study.Transcultural psychiatry · 2026Article
- Translation Validation, Software Adaptation, and Usability Testing of a Spanish Contraception Decision Tool: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Pilot Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Associations between interpreter dependency and rehabilitation outcomes and care processes following acquired brain injury: a Swedish registry-based cohort study.Journal of rehabilitation medicine · 2026Article
- Language Equity in Health Care.The American journal of nursing · 2026Article
- Cross-Cultural Care: The Experiences of Pediatric Nurses in Providing Culturally Sensitive Care to Children and Their Families.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
367 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesLanguage barriers pose challenges in terms of achieving high levels of satisfaction among medical professionals and patients, providing high- quality healthcare and maintaining patient safety. To address these challenges, many larger healthcare institutions offer interpreter services to improve healthcare access, patient satisfaction, and communication. However, these services increase the cost and duration of treatment. The purpose of this review is to investigate the impact of language barriers on healthcare and to suggest solutions to address the challenges.
methodsWe identified published studies on the implications of language barriers in healthcare using two databases: PubMed and Medline. We included 14 studies that met the selection criteria. These studies were conducted in various countries, both developed and developing, though most came from the US. The 14 studies included 300 918 total participants, with participation in each study ranging from 21 to 22 353 people.
resultsWe found that language barriers in healthcare lead to miscommunication between the medical professional and patient, reducing both parties' satisfaction and decreasing the quality of healthcare delivery and patient safety. In addition, the review found that interpreter services contribute indirectly to increased cost and the length of treatment visits. One study reported the implementation of online translation tools such as Google Translate and MediBabble in hospitals, which increased the satisfaction of both medical providers and patients (to 92%) and improved the quality of healthcare delivery and patient safety. Language barriers are responsible for reducing the satisfaction of medical providers and patients, as well as the quality of healthcare delivery and patient safety. Many healthcare institutions use interpreter services that increase the cost and length of treatment visits.
conclusionsThe results of our review suggest that implementing online translation tools such as Google Translate and MediBabble may improve the quality of healthcare and the level of satisfaction among both medical providers and patients.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.