Health providers’ perceptions on language barriers in Catalonia’s public healthcare system

In this article, we present the results of an exploratory quantitative study on the situation of communication between healthcare staff in the Catalan public system and users with limited competence in the official languages of Catalonia. The study objective is to offer a comprehensive and empirically grounded overview of the current state of intercultural communication in the Catalan public health system, with and without the involvement of third-party mediation, as perceived by healthcare providers. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to professionals engaged in direct patient care across public health centres in Catalonia, yielding a sample of 1 390 respondents. The findings underscore the high frequency and significant impact of language barriers in clinical encounters and highlight notable deficiencies in the resources currently available to address these challenges.