A qualitative study

Communication difficulties between hearing-impaired patients and healthcare professionals are a serious risk factor for adequate care and conclude with the need to increase healthcare resources for this group. The main objective of this study is to assess the perception of the health care received in health centres by people with hearing impairment. To this end, a qualitative study was carried out by means of semi-structured interviews with people with this disability living in the Community of Madrid. The results obtained show that communication difficulties continue to be a challenge today. The participants' experience of health care is often associated with situations of discomfort and incomprehension on the part of the primary care team. In general, health professionals do not have sufficient knowledge in communicating with these patients, so there is a demand for more trained human resources, as well as an improvement and adaptation of health structures, to facilitate communication with deaf people.