Linguistic Factors in Arabic for Miscommunication of Medication Names
A commentary and analysis on the miscommunication of medication names between native Arabic-speaking patients and pharmacists with a native English-speaking family physician using Medical English as a Lingua Franca (MELF), in a healthcare context. An important cause of communication difficulties is the different way native English and native Arabic speakers linguistically process medication names when using MELF. This is likely to be explained by the differences in the native grammars of English and Arabic which determine differences in pronunciation and predict potential error prone groupings of letters and sounds. This in turn leads to repeating linguistic errors such as epenthesis (insertion of additional vowels between consonants) and metathesis (the swapping of adjacent consonants). The article highlights a case where both epenthesis and metathesis occur simultaneously leading to a potential serious adverse event through a medication error and suggests further avenues of research to minimise such errors.
Other Information
Published in: Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.2147/jmdh.s229115
Funding
Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.
History
Language
- English
Publisher
Dove Medical PressPublication Year
- 2020
License statement
This Item is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International LicenseInstitution affiliated with
- Primary Health Care Corporation