Tips for communicating with Russian-speaking patients in emergencies

To provide the best tips for communicating with Russian-speaking patients in emergencies, it is essential to draw on guidance for effective intercultural and language barrier communication in acute care settings, especially emergency medicine, as well as specific strategies for handling patients speaking Russian.

I will summarize and compile practical tips based on relevant findings from recent medical communication literature.

References

• Improving Medical Communication: Skills for a Complex (And Multilingual) Clinical World

• “Don’t let me be misunderstood”: communication with patients from a different cultural background

• Overcoming language barriers in paramedic care: a study protocol of the interventional trial ‘DICTUM rescue’ evaluating an app designed to improve communication between paramedics and foreign-language patients

• Improving Medical Communication: Skills for a Complex (And Multilingual) Clinical World

• Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: A protocol for investigating safe and effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second language

• Patient-physician communication in intercultural settings: An integrative review

• Patient interviewing strategy and tactics in teaching professional foreign languages for medical purposes

• Personalized Communication with Patients at the Emergency Department—An Experimental Design Study

• Addressing Language Barriers in the Intensive Care Unit: A Case-Based Reflection and Brief Appraisal of the Literature

• Potential for patient-physician language discordance in Ontario

• The means of expressing the category of politeness in medical discourse (On the material of the doctor and patient speech communication)

• Overcoming Language Barriers in Paramedic Care With an App Designed to Improve Communication With Foreign-Language Patients: Nonrandomized Controlled Pilot Study

• The New Normal: Key Considerations for Effective Serious Illness Communication Over Video or Telephone During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

• Evaluating the Usefulness of Translation Technologies for Emergency Response Communication: A Scenario-Based Study

• Overcoming Language Barriers in Paramedic Care With an App Designed to Improve Communication With Foreign-Language Patients: Nonrandomized Controlled Pilot Study

• Ten Best Practices for Improving Emergency Medicine Provider-Nurse Communication.