Bridging the gap : Enhancing intercultural communication in Catalonia's healthcare through evidence-based insights
Pérez-Real, Ana Isabel (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Miranda, Marc (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Vargas-Urpi, Mireia (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Fecha:	2025
Resumen:	Despite significant advancements in healthcare interpreting research over the past decades, most studies have concentrated on the perceptions of healthcare providers, with less attention given to users and even less to policymakers (Valero-Garcés, 2024). Furthermore, there has been a notable absence of research findings effectively being transferred into tangible improvements in service quality or the working conditions of interpreters and intercultural mediators, who continue to navigate between limited and precarious contractual arrangements (Ugarte Ballester & Vargas-Urpí, 2018; Monzó-Nebot & Álvares-Álvarez, 2024). Unfortunately, the ever-changing landscape of interpreting research and training has not brought changes to the realities of increasingly multicultural and multilingual healthcare centres (Álvaro Aranda & Lázaro Gutiérrez, 2021; Arumí and García-Beyaert, 2022). Addressing this gap, the CIMAS project aims to provide evidence-based healthcare data to both healthcare providers and policymakers concerning a critical issue: the ineffective communication between healthcare providers and users with limited local language proficiency. This study focuses on mediated intercultural communication in Catalonia. The primary objective of this paper is to compare the perceptions and views of healthcare providers with those of policymakers, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in healthcare interpreting. Data were collected using questionnaires for healthcare providers-to reach a broader sample of potential informants-and semi-structured interviews for policymakers and stakeholders-to obtain more detailed, holistic information from a substantially smaller sample. A total of 1,390 questionnaires from a population of 70,484 healthcare providers were collected, as well as 38 questionnaires from approximately 100 intercultural mediators, and 15 policymakers and stakeholders were interviewed. We present quantitative figures for the first sample, while qualitative content analysis has been applied in the second one. The results indicate a discrepancy between the needs of healthcare providers for effective intercultural communication-where ad hoc interpreting remains prevalent in many healthcare centres-and policymakers' perceptions of public service interpreting policy implementation, which began in the late 2000s in Catalonia. In conclusion, we will reflect on the implications of these findings and present actions to translate research into practical applications. Additionally, these results will have broader applicability to various contexts requiring intercultural mediation.
Ayudas:	Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades PID2022-137113OB-I00
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra, i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials i que es distribueixin sota la mateixa llicència que regula l'obra original. Cal que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Contribució a congrés
Materia:	Healthcare interpreting ; Intercultural mediation ; Intercultural mediated communication ; Non-professional interpreting ; Telephone interpreting
Publicado en:	11th EST Congress: The Changing Faces of Translation and Interpreting Studies. Leeds, UK, : 2025

22 p, 3.3 MB

El registro aparece en las colecciones:
Documentos de investigación > Documentos de los grupos de investigación de la UAB > Centros y grupos de investigación (producción científica) > Artes y humanidades > MIRAS (Mediació i Interpretació: Recerca en l'Àmbit Social)
Contribuciones a jornadas y congresos > Presentaciones