Satisfaction with telephonic interpreters in pediatric care.

OBJECTIVES To compare satisfaction among Spanish-speaking mothers who did and did not use telephonic interpreters during pediatric visits, and to examine resident physician attitudes about telephonic interpreter use. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS AND INTERVENTIONS Anonymous surveys were administered to 98 mothers limited in English proficiency and presenting for well-baby visits in an urban university hospital-affiliated practice. Pediatric visits were performed by 24 non-Spanish-proficient pediatric residents. The first 46 women (baseline cohort) received routine services, including ad-hoc interpretation or no interpretation; the second 52 women (intervention cohort) used a dual-headset telephonic interpreter service. OUTCOME MEASURES Mothers completed postvisit interviews assessing overall satisfaction, comfort and ease of communication. Pediatric residents completed self-administered questionnaires assessing attitudes about and experience with telephonic interpretation. RESULTS The intervention cohort overwhelmingly rated telephonic interpretation as "very helpful" (94%), indicating the visit would have been "harder" without the service (98%). Significantly more intervention cohort mothers reported it was "very easy" to communicate with the physician (83% vs. 22%, P < 0.01), they understood "all" that the physician told them (97% vs. 80%, P < 0.05) and they were "very satisfied" with the clinic overall (85% vs. 57%, P < 0.05). Almost all intervention cohort mothers (96%) reported a preference to use telephonic interpretation at their subsequent visit; however, only one-third of residents believed their patients would prefer to use the telephonic interpreter in the future. CONCLUSIONS Mothers who used telephonic interpretation reported significantly greater communication and overall satisfaction compared to mothers in routine care. Pediatric residents substantially underestimated their patients' desire to use telephonic interpreters.