Background:

Studies show that when nurses are experiencing problems in the care of non-Swedish speaking patients, it is often due to obstacles in the communication. Studies also show that a prerequisite for adequate care is that there is a basis for a direct communication. Nurses perceive interpreters as an important link to the patient when they do not share a mutual language, the nurses perceive interpreters as a bridge in the conversation.

Aim:

The purpose of the study is to describe nurses' experiences of the quality of assessments done with the help of an interpreter.

Method:

The study was conducted through interviews with ten nurses, working at psychiatric clinics. Qualitative content analysis was used for the analysis, which resulted in five categories.

Results:

The analysis resulted in one theme: "it´s the interpreter who tells me and have not the feeling that the patient has" and five categories: "shades of the language", "conversation structure", "the interpreter's competence", "interpreting implementing" and "the interpreter's gender and origin". The nurses experience working with interpreters as a challenge. The difficulty of working with the help of an interpreter is that the nurse cannot see the spoken word in connection with the patient's body language. Communication through an interpreter also felt unnatural and the interpreter's participation is perceived as a filter.

Conclusion:

The quality of the assessments were not perceived as good with the interpreter as without, however, there was no risk to patient safety.