The Association between Patient-Reported Pain and Doctors’ Language Proficiency in Clinical Practice

Table 3

Correlations between the GP’s patient-reported proficiency in Swedish and Finnish and the patients’ experience of pain.

	Poor	Average	Good	value
The GP’s language proficiency in
Swedish % ()	76.9 (13)	19.0 (12)	60.3 (38)
Finnish % ()	5.1 (19)	26.1 (98)	68.8 (258)
Both Swedish and Finnish % ()	7.3 (32)	24.8 (109)	67.6 (296)
The patients’ pain experience mean ± SD ()
GP’s proficiency in Swedish	3.7 ± 2.43 (12)	2.7 ± 2.0 (11)	2.8 ± 1.9 (33)	Ns
GP’s proficiency in Finnish	4.4 ± 1.7 (18)	3.7 ± 1.9 (91)	3.3 ± 2.1 (252)	0.005
Proficiency in Swedish and Finnish	4.1 ± 2.0 (30)	3.7 ± 1.9 (103)	3.3 ± 2.1 (285)	0.007

Language proficiency scale: 1 = poor, 2 = average, and 3 = good.
Adjusted for age, gender, income, education, and native language.