This master's thesis follows-up on the project of the Slovene Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund of publishing an aid intended to facilitate the communication between migrants and healthcare staff, which resulted in the publication of the Multilingual Aid for Better Communication in Healthcare (hereafter Multilingul Aid). In this thesis, I try to determine the usability of this Multilingual Aid in clinical practice. The study was carried out in the form of a usability study at the Ljubljana Bežigrad Community Health Center as well as at the Pediatric Clinic of the Ljubljana University Medical Center. In the study, the usability of the Multilingual Aid is determined with the help of an observation sheet, which was prepared by Nike Kocijančič Pokorn as part of the project mentioned above. It has been hypothesized that the use of the Multilingual Aid may assist healthcare professionals in communicating with non-Slovene speaking patients in clinical practice and that communication between them will thus be improved, more effective and more fluid. However, it has also been assumed that the Multilingual Aid’s applicability is limited as it is not sufficiently extensive to be used in the plethora of various health treatments. The results of the study which included the observation of medical examination of 18 patients who do not speak Slovene have shown that while the Multilingual Aid is useful in establishing basic communication, it is quickly abandoned by healthcare professionals when they need a more accurate history since the contents of the Multilingual Aid are either insufficient or not sufficiently precise. Furthermore, its use is time consuming, especially for those patients and healthcare professionals who are not acquainted with it or have not been trained on how to use it. In conclusion, taking into account the limitations of the Multilingual Aid the use of properly trained interpreters is recommended to ensure effective communication.
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