Inability to locate education resources for a specific language (43 percent) was the most common provider-level barrier at BMT centers

Description #

Among provider-level barriers to meeting language-access needs, the inability to locate patient-education resources for a specific language occurred most often (43.0% very often/often), followed by unavailability of bilingual staff (38.0%), inability to locate a specific interpreter previously requested by a patient/provider (20.3%), and inability to locate an interpreter for the time needed (19.0%) (Table 3). The inability to locate an interpreter for the time needed was significantly associated with the pediatric patient population (P < 0.05).

"Of the provider-level factors, the inability to locate patient education resources for a specific language occurred most often (43.0%), followed by unavailability of bilingual staff (38.0%), inability to locate a specific interpreter requested by a patient or provider (20.3%), and inability to locate an interpreter for the time needed (19.0%) were experienced very often/often." (Idossa, 2019, p. 1035)

Methods Context #

What? #ⓘ

The observable: how often each provider-level barrier (locating resources, interpreters, bilingual staff) was experienced at the transplant center.

"Barriers to meeting language access needs were evaluated for provider-level and system-level factors (Table 3)." (Idossa, 2019, p. 1035)

How? #ⓘ

Cross-sectional web-based survey; barrier frequency was captured on Likert scales collapsed into "often" (very often/often) versus "not often."

"Often very often/often; Not often occasionally/rarely/never" (Idossa, 2019, p. 1035, Table 3)

Who? #ⓘ

The transplant-center-staff respondents to the barriers items; Table 3 is based on N = 79 (per-item missing responses noted).

"Frequency of language services and resources needs and barriers at transplant centers in U.S. (N = 79)" (Idossa, 2019, p. 1035, Table 3)

Other Notes #

The Discussion attributes these to "time constraints and lack of awareness of existing resources" and to "the lack of available bilingual staff" (Idossa, 2019, p. 1036).

Caveats #

• Cross-sectional TC-staff survey (59 percent response) underrepresents small-volume centers and non-social-worker roles with high item missingness The estimates come from a cross-sectional web-based survey with a 59% response rate in which not every transplant center provided input; patient educators/advocates and transplant coordinators were poorly represented (respondents were overwhelmingly social workers), and small-volume centers (fewer than 100 BMTs/year) were underrepresented relative to medium and large centers. In addition, many items carried a relatively high percentage of missing responses (e.g., 16.5–22.8% missing on Table 3 items), which the authors attribute to respondents not knowing or the item not applying. Together these features limit the representativeness and precision of the reported frequencies of needs and barriers.