Language Barier in the nursing Care from the View of Foreigners

Language barriers in nursing care from the view of foreigners The degree paper was aimed at the problems caused by language barriers in the Czech health care facilities between the nurses and the increasing number of hospitalized foreigners in our country. The rules and principles of multicultural nursing care are defined and the knowledge or perfect mastering of foreign languages by nurses seem to be more often the basic precondition for providing a comprehensive care in the Czech hospitals. The objective of this paper was to ascertain the scope of language barrier between the nurses and patients of different cultures through the eyes of foreigners and to assess the impact of the language barrier on the level and quality of the nursing care services provided by nurses. The survey is a quantitative research based on three anticipated hypotheses. H1 states that nursing care depends on the language and communication skills of both nurses and foreigners. H2 describes language barriers of nurses as considerable, namely in connection with the deficit of knowledge of foreign languages, and H3 mentions possible negative impact of language barriers on the quality level of nursing care. These hypotheses were confirmed. The data for the survey were processed by secondary analysis and the basic technique of the data collection was a questionnaire for the foreigners treated in the Czech health care facilities. The questionnaire contained 30 questions relating mostly to the problems caused by language barriers of nurses and foreigners and using of translator{\crq}s services by foreigners in the Czech hospitals. The survey was carried out in the clinic of reproductive medicine and endocrinology in Plzeň and Karlovy Vary. The survey showed that the degree of language barrier between nurses and foreigners in the Czech Republic was much higher than in other foreign countries and has often a negative impact on the level of nursing care provided. The reason of that was an insufficient language proficiency of nurses and not taking into consideration the specific cultural needs of a patient. Interpreting services provided by Czech hospital to foreigners are virtually nil. The results of this degree paper will be provided to those who are interested in these issues and may contribute to understanding the necessity of the Czech nurses to be able to communicate in foreign language in connection with the improvement of quality of nursing care in our country