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Deaf Community is Less Informed About Cancer Prevention Recommendations - Oncology Nursing News
The deaf community is poorly informed about interventions for cancer prevention, finds a study conducted at the University of Michigan.
To test how well information on recommendations for cancer prevention was disseminated to individuals in the deaf community, researchers showed participants a cancer prevention video that included sign language interpretation and reading captions.
The study found that, after viewing the video, participants answered, on average, only 22.9% of the questions correctly. The study also showed that deaf persons who reported speaking English at home, with hearing persons and with physicians, generally scored higher than those who use American Sign Language or another language. Participants also had higher scores when they obtained information about cancer prevention from books, physicians, nurses, or the Internet.
“Deaf persons have been found to be the non-English speaking minority at greatest risk for miscommunication with their physicians,” said lead author Philip Zazove, MD. “If we can figure out how to help this group, there's potential for helping other non-English speaking minorities.”
Researchers believe that the findings of this study confirm other reports that individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing are less informed about cancer prevention recommendations that people who can hear. “The deaf community is the non-English speaking minority at greatest risk for poor physician communication because it is unlikely that physicians will speak their language—and because they have difficulty expressing themselves in English,” Dr Zazove noted.
The deaf community is poorly informed about interventions for cancer prevention, finds a study conducted at the University of Michigan.
To test how well information on recommendations for cancer prevention was disseminated to individuals in the deaf community, researchers showed participants a cancer prevention video that included sign language interpretation and reading captions.
The study found that, after viewing the video, participants answered, on average, only 22.9% of the questions correctly. The study also showed that deaf persons who reported speaking English at home, with hearing persons and with physicians, generally scored higher than those who use American Sign Language or another language. Participants also had higher scores when they obtained information about cancer prevention from books, physicians, nurses, or the Internet.
“Deaf persons have been found to be the non-English speaking minority at greatest risk for miscommunication with their physicians,” said lead author Philip Zazove, MD. “If we can figure out how to help this group, there's potential for helping other non-English speaking minorities.”
Researchers believe that the findings of this study confirm other reports that individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing are less informed about cancer prevention recommendations that people who can hear. “The deaf community is the non-English speaking minority at greatest risk for poor physician communication because it is unlikely that physicians will speak their language—and because they have difficulty expressing themselves in English,” Dr Zazove noted.