Healthcare communication access among deaf and hard-of-hearing people during pregnancy.
Tyler G James, Tiffany Panko, Lauren D Smith and 6 others
PMID 37060682WHAT IT FOUND
Deaf and hard-of-hearing maternity patients rated prenatal communication good, but many on-site interpreter and face-to-face modification requests were unmet, and VRI often had technical failures.
Ask each patient's preferred accommodation and avoid relying on family interpreters.
Key findings
01Over 70% of DHH participants rated communication with their prenatal provider as good or very good.
02During labor and delivery, 64.1% of ASL users and 56.3% of bilingual participants requested on-site interpreters; among ASL-only and bilingual requesters, 10.0% and 16.4% respectively did not receive them.
03VRI was used during perinatal care by 17.5% of participants, and among users connectivity problems were most common, followed by setup delays and poor placement.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Participants reported accommodations for their most recent birth after the fact, and the survey did not capture the sequence of request, denial, and fallback accommodation. The survey assessed communication quality and accommodations with the primary prenatal provider and during prenatal and labor periods, not with non-clinician healthcare staff. The survey was administered during the COVID-19 pandemic, when masks and remote interpreting may have affected communication. Recruitment was purposeful through DHH organizations and social media, and the sample was predominantly white and college-educated, so it may not represent all DHH people who give birth. The study reports prevalence of requested and received accommodations and communication quality, not birth or neonatal outcomes.
Declared interests
The supplied publication types list extramural NIH research support. The article text provided does not include a separate conflicts-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the high communication-quality ratings as proof that accommodations were consistently provided. Many participants reported unmet interpreter requests, unrequested VRI, and family members acting as interpreters.