Completeness of Written Discharge Guidance for English- and Spanish-Speaking Patient Families

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Written discharge guidance for hospitalized pediatric patients should include language-appropriate key elements to ensure positive discharge outcomes. Our objective in this study was to determine the completeness of written pediatric discharge guidance and to test the hypothesis that Spanish-speaking families with limited English proficiency (LEP) receive less complete written discharge guidance than English-speaking families. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective review of written discharge guidance provided to 100 English- and 100 Spanish-speaking families at an urban nonfreestanding children’s hospital to assess the inclusion of key elements: follow-up plan, contingency plan, telephone contact, discharge medications, discharge diagnosis, and hospital course. We compared the completeness of discharge guidance (number of elements provided among number of applicable elements) between English- versus Spanish-speaking families. RESULTS: When evaluating discharge guidance for the presence of key elements in any language, there was no significant difference between English- and Spanish-speaking families. However, the mean completeness of language-appropriate discharge guidance for English- and Spanish-speaking families was 87.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] 84.4%–91.1%) and 16.0% (95% CI 11.5%–20.4%), respectively. The ordinal logistic regression examining the association between the number of key element deficits and English- (reference group) versus Spanish-speaking families demonstrated an adjusted odds ratio of 339.8 (95% CI 112.4–1027.5). CONCLUSIONS: Few Spanish-speaking families with LEP receive written discharge guidance in their preferred language. Complete, language-appropriate discharge guidance was identified as an area for improvement efforts to work toward improving care provided to families with LEP.