Nurses’ Experiences as Care Providers for Monolingual Patients: Insight and Suggestions for Communication During Nursing Care in Multicultural Societies

Abstract

Introduction: The language barrier may cause ineffective communication during nursing care, and its potential consequences are felt in multicultural and multilingual societies due to language diversity. This study explored nurses’ experiences of providing nursing care to monolingual patients at a national referral hospital in Namibia. Methods: This qualitative, explorative, and descriptive research was conducted with conveniently sampled nurses who were then interviewed individually. These nurses worked for over a year and could speak only two or less languages. Data analysis followed Braun and Clarke’s six phases of reflexive thematic analysis. Results: From interviews with 19 nurses, four main themes were revealed: personal benefits, negative experiences, alternative communication approaches, and strategies to improve nursing care for monolingual patients. Discussion: These results have implications for providing culturally congruent care by revealing the importance of recruiting professional interpreters and multilingual nurses, incorporating language courses into undergraduate curricula, and providing in-service training for nurses.