Brief pre-departure medical Spanish training for a short-term medical mission to Peru: an uncontrolled pre-post pilot study
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Language discordance between patients and providers is common on short-term global health engagements, and brief pre-departure language training is sometimes offered as preparation even where interpreters remain available. Whether such training is associated with self-reported gains in comfort and preparedness has not been well characterized. This uncontrolled pilot study describes a one-hour medical Spanish session delivered before a one-week medical mission trip to Peru. This was a prospective, single-group, uncontrolled pre-post pilot study of volunteers on a short-term medical mission trip. The study was determined exempt by the Texas A&M University Institutional Review Board (Study 2026-0001). Participants completed pseudonymous, self-linked surveys before attending a live, one-hour, online case-based medical Spanish session or viewing a recording of the session, immediately after the session (optional, among attendees), and after returning from the trip. Because the pre-trip and immediate post-course survey items were not equivalently worded, only the pre-trip to post-trip comparison was analyzed inferentially. This comparison, self-rated comfort communicating in Spanish, combines a baseline item about comfort taking a medical history with a post-trip item about general communication comfort; it was designated as the single primary outcome because it is the most closely matched item pair in the dataset, not because the wording is identical. It was analyzed with a two-sided exact Wilcoxon signed-rank test and reported with a matched-pairs rank-biserial effect size (r) and a bootstrap 95% confidence interval for the mean difference. All other outcomes, including immediate post-course self-ratings and post-trip use, recognition, and safety items, were treated as secondary or exploratory and are reported descriptively with exact item-level denominators. Of 31 eligible participants, 24 (77.4%) completed the pre-trip survey, 10 completed the optional post-course survey, and 17 (54.8%) completed the post-trip survey (2 duplicate post-trip submissions under one participant code were resolved by retaining the first complete entry); among post-trip respondents, 15 of 17 (88.2%) reported having attended or watched the session. Among 16 participants with matched, non-missing pre-trip and post-trip responses (14 of whom reported attending or watching the session and 2 of whom did not), self-rated comfort communicating in Spanish increased from a median of 1 to a median of 3 (mean 1.44 to 2.81; exact Wilcoxon signed-rank p < 0.001; matched-pairs rank-biserial r = 1.00; bootstrap 95% CI for the mean difference, 1.06 to 1.69); 15 of 16 participants improved and 1 showed no change. Non-completers of the post-trip survey ( n = 7) had higher baseline self-rated Spanish proficiency than completers (mean 2.86 vs. 2.18 on a 5-point scale) and were disproportionately attending clinicians (3 of 4 attendings did not complete the post-trip survey), suggesting differential follow-up by baseline experience. Post-trip, participants reported frequent use of taught phrases (median 4 of 5; n = 15) and rated the accompanying reference sheet as helpful (median 4 of 5; n = 14). One of 17 respondents reported experiencing or witnessing a communication-related near-miss; because this was an unvalidated self-report item without a standardized definition or independent event ascertainment, no conclusion about patient safety can be drawn from this figure. In this small, uncontrolled pilot, self-reported comfort communicating in Spanish was higher among follow-up respondents after a one-hour pre-departure session and a subsequent week of mission-based clinical exposure. Because the design cannot separate the effect of the session from concurrent exposure, repeated assessment, or differential follow-up, these findings are hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory. Larger, controlled studies using validated, equivalent measures and objective or patient-facing outcomes are needed before conclusions about effectiveness, communication competence, or safety can be drawn. Determined exempt by the Texas A&M University Institutional Review Board, Study 2026-0001, approved January 30, 2026. Clinical trial number: not applicable.
Source: BMC Medical Education
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,990
OpenAlex ID: W7223467186
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