Language barriers in German outpatient diabetes care: a cross-sectional study on multilingual treatment and the use of interpreters

Language barriers significantly contribute to limited access and treatment quality in diabetic health care for ethnic minority groups. The study assesses the extent of linguistic resources and barriers in outpatient diabetes care in Germany. The questionnaire-based explorative cross-sectional study included all certified outpatient diabetological practices in Germany (N = 169), assessing, among other things, medical professionals’ (MP) language competencies, language barriers in treatment, use of and attitudes towards professional interpreters. One hundred and seven practices (63