Language barriers top the list of challenges doctors face with end-of-life conversations with patients from different ethnic backgrounds.

It’s never easy for doctors to talk to their patients about death, but it’s especially hard when they don’t speak the same language. In fact, language differences top the list of barriers doctors encounter when discussing end-of-life issues with patients, according to a study published today in the journal PLoS One.

The nation is growing older and more ethnically diverse over time, according toUnited States Census Bureau statistics, which means more and more medical resources will be devoted to end-of-life care. Meanwhile, non-white patients are more likely to undergo intense, often useless treatments in their final years, and are less likely to go into hospice care—all while incurring higher end-of-life costs.

That’s a problem that better communication could ease, argues a team of researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Veterans Administration’s Palo Alto hospital. But until now, no one really knew what stood in the way of doctors talking with their patients about planning for their final days, especially when those patients were from different ethnic backgrounds. More.

See: Pacific Standard

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