Research Article

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

Table 4

Correlations between the GP’s patient-reported language proficiency in Swedish and Finnish and pain experience (pain scale VAS 0–10) related to the reason for emergency visit.

Pain experience, mean ± SD () when the GP’s language proficiency was as follows value
Poor Average Good

Reason for visit
 Musculoskeletal problems 5.1 ± 1.5 (6)4.7 ± 1.0 (27)4.3 ± 1.8 (77)0.2
 Other health problems3.8 ± 2.0 (23)3.3 ± 2.0 (75)2.9 ± 2.1 (202)0.01
 All problems4.1 ± 2.0 (30)3.6 ± 1.9 (102)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.