Patient-Centred Translation and Communication

In response to the growing importance and spread of patient-centred care, the need to empower patients and the trend towards democratizing specialized knowledge in health care, this book puts patients centre stage and provides concepts, methods and learning materials to enhance effective communication with patients and relatives in health care settings.

Opening chapters establish the conceptual and methodological framework needed to understand patient-centredness, the crucial role of context and culture, the range of communicative situations and text genres involved, and the diversity of modes, formats and media in which patient-centred translation and communication take place. Subsequent chapters raise awareness of the importance of carefully defining the target audience and producing understandable and empathetic messages, and provide analytical tools for making decisions in these three key areas. The final concluding chapter offers avenues for research in patient-centred translation and communication with the hope of bridging the gap between practice and research and advancing this growing field of inquiry.

Including activities, resources, summaries, further reading and pointers to further research in each chapter, this is the essential guide for all translators and interpreters, students and professionals working in this area of translation studies, health care and communication studies.

"This is an important book! By means of its interdisciplinary approach, and at the intersection of translation and writing, it explores what it entails to be truly patient-centered. Scholars as well as practitioners within translation and health communication will benefit from topical insights on significant issues such as how to ensure comprehensibility, accommodate the target group, and support patients at an emotional level." - Karen Korning Zethsen, Professor of Translation Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark

"A welcome work that explores the various dimensions of patient-centered communication and translation, increasingly at the heart of medical and paramedical practices. Comprehensive, well-documented and well structured, this must-have book for anyone designing or translating patient-facing documents will be useful to students and experienced professionals alike, as well as to teachers and researchers." - Sylvie Vandaele, Full Professor, Université de Montréal, Canada

"I applaud the authors for their work on this long-awaited volume which explores different aspects of patient-centered translation, which should be essential reading for any student, educator or practitioner involved in this important field of community translation. Patients are the all-important end-users of health translation, and involving end-user perspectives in the final health translation product is crucial." - Ineke Crezee, ONZM, Professor of Translation and Interpreting, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand