Understanding the Experiences of Medical Interpreters in Palliative Care: An Exploration of Measurement Tools

Abstract

Medical interpreters aid in providing culturally sensitive palliative care to patients with limited-English proficiency. However, navigating their complex, and sometimes contradictory, roles and the sensitive nature of the content in palliative care encounters can negatively impact medical interpreters. Compassion fatigue (CF) and secondary traumatic stress (STS) are concepts that have been explored in many healthcare professionals but have not been fully explored in medical interpreters in palliative care. This review examines the psychometric properties of three measures of CF and STS that have been utilized in various populations of healthcare providers. There are no measures of CF or STS that have been shown to be valid and reliable in medical interpreters participating palliative care encounters. Further research is needed to investigate the validity of the reviewed measures in medical interpreters, and it may be beneficial to modify existing tools to measure CF and STS more accurately in this population.