When Distress Goes Unseen: Mental Health Recognition Failures in Language-Discordant Consultations
Carmen Pena-Díaz, Fe Amalia García Santiago · 2026
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Description
Carmen Pena-Diaz and Fe Amalia Garcia Santiago study missed distress in language-mismatched medical visits in a 2026 paper. Patients who cannot speak the clinic's language often rely on interpreters. Emotional pain can shrink or vanish in that relay, even when medical facts pass through intact.
The team examined fifteen recorded hospital consultations with verified transcripts. Languages included Arabic, Chinese, English, Russian, and Ukrainian. Coding separated spoken distress, visible emotion, and distress the researchers inferred. Each item was tracked for whether it reached the clinician fully, partly, or not at all. Medical and procedural content usually survived the relay. Distress expressions fared worse. The exploratory study argues for interpreter training that guards emotional content.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Carmen Pena-Díaz, Fe Amalia García Santiago |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 44 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |