A corroborative study on communication gaps among foreign patients and medical service providers in Japan.

在这项研究中，我们对医疗服务提供者进行了问卷调查和两种类型的焦点小组讨论，以确定如何为在日本的外国患者提供安全可靠的医疗服务。1)外籍患者与医疗服务提供者(医生和药剂师)沟通差距的现状及相关因素；2)护士在沟通障碍患者护理中的文化能力；3)为外籍患者提供安全医疗服务的关键问题及改进策略。提示日本医疗服务提供者与非日语外籍患者沟通能力较弱，与外籍患者的沟通质量低于日语患者。为了解决这一问题，建议使用经过适当培训的医学口译员，并培养文化能力。

In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey and two types of focus group discussions with medical service providers in order to determine how to provide safe and secure medical services to foreign patients in Japan. We investigated as follows ; 1) Status and associated factors of communication gaps between foreign patients and medical service providers(medical doctors and pharmacists), 2) Nurses' cultural competence in nursing care of patients with communication disabilities, 3) The critical issues and improvement strategies for providing safe medical services to foreign patients. It was suggested that Japanese medical service providers were weak in communication with non Japanese speaking foreign patients ; thus the quality of communication with foreign patients was poorer than that with Japanese patients. In order to resolve that problem, it was suggested to use medical interpreters who have been properly trained, and to develop cultural competencies.