Language spoken at home and the association between ethnicity and doctor–patient communication in primary care: analysis of survey data for South Asian and White British patients

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To investigate if language spoken at home mediates the relationship between ethnicity and doctor-patient communication for South Asian and White British patients. METHODS: We conducted secondary analysis of patient experience survey data collected from 5870 patients across 25 English general practices. Mixed effect linear regression estimated the difference in composite general practitioner-patient communication scores between White British and South Asian patients, controlling for practice, patient demographics and patient language. RESULTS: There was strong evidence of an association between doctor-patient communication scores and ethnicity. South Asian patients reported scores averaging 3.0 percentage points lower (scale of 0-100) than White British patients (95% CI -4.9 to -1.1, p=0.002). This difference reduced to 1.4 points (95% CI -3.1 to 0.4) after accounting for speaking a non-English language at home; respondents who spoke a non-English language at home reported lower scores than English-speakers (adjusted difference 3.3 points, 95% CI -6.4 to -0.2). CONCLUSIONS: South Asian patients rate communication lower than White British patients within the same practices and with similar demographics. Our analysis further shows that this disparity is largely mediated by language.