Navigating language discordance in public health care in rural South Africa: a qualitative descriptive study of occupational therapists’ perspectives

BACKGROUND: Language discordance occurs in healthcare when staff and service users do not share proficiency in the same language. It is a global phenomenon impacting on the quality of health services, as person-centred practice requires communication to establish partnerships and rapport. In a country as linguistically diverse as South Africa, effective ways to navigate language discordance in health care are urgently required, yet there is limited research. This study aimed to describe how occupational therapists navigated language discordance when working in the public health sector in KwaZulu-Natal. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive design involved using purposive sampling to recruit occupational therapists as participants (n = 8) for 15 semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data, which included reflective journal entries from all participants. RESULTS: The four emergent themes were: (1) concurrent use of strategies, (2) I’m doing as much I can, what more can I do? (3) Language definitely impacts that therapy process and lastly, (4) systemic oppression perpetuating language discordance. CONCLUSION: Language discordance is a complex context-specific phenomenon, therefore insight into concurrent use of strategies is important to practitioners to enable them to navigate language discordance and ensure provision of quality services. These insights are significant for healthcare professionals and resource allocators as they shed light on the shortcomings of advocating for a single strategy such as providing trained interpreters. Successful navigation is characterised by determination, being kind to oneself, willingness to learn and use of pragmatic and flexible approaches. To prepare to navigate language discordance in a low-resource context, education should extend in time and scope, to include multiple strategies, culture and relevant languages.