Response II week II Hlth asmnt

Respond to peers post 

Respond on or before Day 6 on 2 different days to at least two of your colleagues who were assigned a different patient than you. Critique your colleague’s targeted questions, and explain how the patient might interpret these questions. Explain whether any of the questions would apply to your patient, and why.

Case 1: Paloma Hernandez, 26 year-old, Spanish speaking patient who presents to the clinic for the last 2 days in a row complaining of abdominal pain that is getting worse. The first visit the staff relied on her younger bilingual daughter to translate. She was treated with Omeprazole and encouraged to take OTC medication. Today she presents with the same problem. Her daughter states it is the same problem but worse today.

The first thing to address is that a professional translator should have been utilized and encouraged for the first visit. Communication is key to understanding the patient’s concerns and addressing the reason for the visit. Relying on the patient’s daughter to translate is not going to be an accurate way to gather information. The patient is 26 years old so more than likely her daughter is twelve years old or younger and may not be able to accurately describe the abdominal pain and translate effectively. Utilizing professional interpreter ensures that communication is optimized, improves outcomes, and increases patient satisfaction. A barrier to utilizing a professional interpreter would be that it can be difficult to establish trust between the triad when involving an interpreter into the relationship that acts like a mediator for the message to be translated (Jungner et al., 2019). Hispanic population have additional barriers to receiving timely health care that can include a lower income and decreased likelihood to have obtained higher education. These barriers can make it difficult for this population to pay out of pocket medical care and many do not have adequate insurance. Once the communication barrier is taken care of the line of communication should be able to ask targeted questions to figure out the cause of the patient’s abdominal pain. The following would be targeted questions to obtain more information regarding the current symptoms as well as obtain more health history information (Escarce, 2006).

1. How would you describe the pain?
   1. Knowing if the pain is dull, sharp, radiating, etc. is critical to ensuring the patient feels heard and gives a better hint of what the etiology of the pain may be from (Mayo Clinic, 2021).
2. What does your typical diet consist of?
   1. Important to ask if there have been any recent dietary changes that could be causing abdominal pain.
3. How much water do you drink daily?
   1. The body needs adequate water to function properly.
4. Have you had any current difficulty with using the restroom? Burning or pain while using the bathroom or experienced any constipation?
   1. These questions are important because stool can tell a lot about a person’s health and UTIs and other infections related can cause abdominal pain. Also, it is important to ask if there has been any blood in the stool or urine.
5. Do you have a history of GI complications?
   1. Knowing if a patient has chronic GI symptoms can improve treatment goals and help address if the underlying issue that is causing the pain could be related to chronic issues.
6. Are you currently trying to become pregnant?
   1. Stomach pain and cramps are common with pregnancy, knowing if the patient is actively trying to conceive is important not only for being a possible cause for the pain, but to also know while prescribing any treatments (NHS, 2021).
7. Traveled recently outside of the United States?
   1. Traveling outside of the United States can increase risk for developing GI complications due to drinking or eating contaminated water or food (Mayo Clinic, 2021).