ArticleCMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne2022
Patient-physician language concordance and quality and safety outcomes among frail home care recipients admitted to hospital in Ontario, Canada.
Article in CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Dimensions and components of hospital-at-home care: a systematic review.BMC health services research · 2024Pooled it
- Association between language discordance and unplanned hospital readmissions or emergency department revisits: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ quality & safety · 2024Pooled it
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of Social Prescribing: Comparing a Comprehensive Navigation Model With Signposting.Annals of family medicine · 2026Trial
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- Differences in experiences with episodic virtual care based on language of comfort for healthcare services in New Brunswick, Canada.BMC primary care · 2026Article
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- Impact of language concordant care on comprehension and adherence to infection prevention protocols among hospitalized patients: A multicentre survey.Canada communicable disease report = Releve des maladies transmissibles au Canada · 2026Article
- Obstetric trauma and its association with race and immigration: a population-based cohort study in Ontario, Canada.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2026Article
- Intersectionality-Informed HIV Cure-Related Research at the End of Life: A Call to Action.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Health Data for Linguistic Minority Group Research in Canada: Proof-of-Concept Centralized Health Care Metadata Repository Development and Usability Study.JMIR infodemiology · 2026Article
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- Language Access in Healthcare: Aligning Policy and Evidence to Improve Patient Experience Through Professional Interpretation and Language- Concordant Care.Journal of patient experience · 2026Article
- Experiences and Perspectives of Caregivers of Francophone Older Adults Accessing Community Health Services in Toronto: an Exploratory Qualitative Study.Canadian geriatrics journal : CGJ · 2025Article
- Integrating equity into hospital incident reporting and patient concerns systems: study protocol for a mixed methods study.BMJ open · 2025Article
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- Language Preference and Use of Physical and Chemical Restraints Among Hospitalized Older Adults With Dementia.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Article
- Accuracy of preferred language data in a multi-hospital electronic health record in Toronto, Canada.PLOS digital health · 2025Article
- Reducing inequalities in cardiovascular disease: focus on marginalized populations considering ethnicity and race.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2025Review
- Linguistic factors and COVID-19 outcomes among long-term care residents in Ontario, Canada.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWhen patients and physicians speak the same language, it may improve the quality and safety of care delivered. We sought to determine whether patient-physician language concordance is associated with in-hospital and postdischarge outcomes among home care recipients who were admitted to hospital.
methodsWe conducted a population-based study of a retrospective cohort of 189 690 home care recipients who were admitted to hospital in Ontario, Canada, between 2010 and 2018. We defined patient language (obtained from home care assessments) as English (Anglophone), French (Francophone) or other (allophone). We obtained physician language from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. We defined hospital admissions as language concordant when patients received more than 50% of their care from physicians who spoke the patients' primary language. We identified in-hospital (adverse events, length of stay, death) and post-discharge outcomes (emergency department visits, readmissions, death within 30 days of discharge). We used regression analyses to estimate the adjusted rate of mean and the adjusted odds ratio (OR) of each outcome, stratified by patient language, to assess the impact of language-concordant care within each linguistic group.
resultsAllophone patients who received language-concordant care had lower risk of adverse events (adjusted OR 0.25, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.15-0.43) and in-hospital death (adjusted OR 0.44, 95% CI 0.29-0.66), as well as shorter stays in hospital (adjusted rate of mean 0.74, 95% CI 0.66-0.83) than allophone patients who received language-discordant care. Results were similar for Francophone patients, although the magnitude of the effect was smaller than for allophone patients. Language concordance or discordance of the hospital admission was not associated with significant differences in postdischarge outcomes.
interpretationPatients who received most of their care from physicians who spoke the patients' primary language had better in-hospital outcomes, suggesting that disparities across linguistic groups could be mitigated by providing patients with language-concordant care.
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