Bridging the Language Gap in Healthcare: A Narrative Review of Interpretation Services and Access to Care for Immigrants and Refugees in Greece and Europe

TL;DR

This paper reviews how language barriers affect healthcare access for immigrants and refugees in Greece and Europe, showing that professional interpreters improve outcomes and equity.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive narrative review highlighting the critical role of professional interpretation and intercultural mediation in improving healthcare access and outcomes for migrants in Greece.

Findings

Professional interpreters significantly improve communication accuracy and patient satisfaction compared to ad hoc interpretation.

Limited Greek proficiency is linked to longer waiting times and reduced healthcare utilization among migrants.

Institutionalized interpretation systems in European countries outperform Greece’s fragmented approach.

Abstract

What are the main findings?
Professional interpreters and intercultural mediators substantially improve communication accuracy, healthcare access, patient satisfaction, and clinical outcomes for migrants and refugees, outperforming ad hoc interpretation by a wide margin.Limited proficiency in Greek is strongly associated with longer waiting times, reduced utilization of services, poorer comprehension of medical information, and diminished patient satisfaction, underscoring language as a critical determinant of healthcare inequity in Greece.

Professional interpreters and intercultural mediators substantially improve communication accuracy, healthcare access, patient satisfaction, and clinical outcomes for migrants and refugees, outperforming ad hoc interpretation by a wide margin.

Limited proficiency in Greek is strongly associated with longer waiting times, reduced utilization of services, poorer comprehension of medical information, and diminished patient satisfaction, underscoring language as a critical determinant of healthcare inequity in Greece.

What are the implications of the main findings?
Implementing structured, professionally staffed interpretation services is essential for ensuring equitable and safe healthcare delivery, reducing clinical errors, shortening hospital stays, and contributing to more efficient use of healthcare resources.Integrating intercultural mediation and systematic linguistic support into national healthcare policy can strengthen patient safety, enhance trust in health services, and support the effective integration of migrants and refugees into the Greek healthcare system.

Implementing structured, professionally staffed interpretation services is essential for ensuring equitable and safe healthcare delivery, reducing clinical errors, shortening hospital stays, and contributing to more efficient use of healthcare resources.

Integrating intercultural mediation and systematic linguistic support into national healthcare policy can strengthen patient safety, enhance trust in health services, and support the effective integration of migrants and refugees into the Greek healthcare system.

Background: Language barriers remain a major obstacle to equitable healthcare access for immigrants and refugees across Europe. Greece, as both a transit and host country, faces persistent challenges in providing linguistically and culturally appropriate care. Methods: This study presents a narrative literature review synthesizing international, European, and Greek evidence on the effects of limited language proficiency, professional interpretation, and intercultural mediation on healthcare access, patient safety, satisfaction, and clinical outcomes. Peer-reviewed studies and selected grey literature were identified through searches of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and CINAHL. Results: The evidence consistently demonstrates that the absence of professional interpretation is associated with substantially higher rates of clinically significant communication errors, longer hospital stays, increased readmissions, and higher healthcare costs. In contrast, the use of trained medical interpreters and intercultural mediators improves comprehension, shared decision-making, patient satisfaction, and clinical outcomes. Comparative European data from Italy, Spain, Germany, and Sweden show that institutionalized interpretation systems outperform Greece’s fragmented, NGO-dependent approach. Greek studies further reveal that limited proficiency in Greek is associated with reduced service utilization, longer waiting times, and lower patient satisfaction. Conclusions: This narrative review highlights the urgent need for Greece to adopt a coordinated, professionally staffed interpretation and intercultural mediation framework. Strengthening linguistic support within the healthcare system is essential for improving patient safety, equity, efficiency, and the integration of migrant and refugee populations.