American Obstetrics Through Latino Eyes: Exploring Postpartum Patient Satisfaction Among Spanish-Speaking Mothers

Postpartum satisfaction surveys are an important patient-reported indicator of healthcare quality. Suboptimal participation rate is a common weakness of such surveys and certain populations may be less likely to participate in these surveys than others. At our institution, despite the availability of equivalent standardized English and Spanish-language versions of the surveys, Spanish-speaking patients participate significantly less than their English-speaking counterparts. This prefigures a concerning disparity in the tracking of patient-reported outcomes in this group. Hispanics are the largest minority group in America and the growth of this population by 43% from 2000-2010 accounts for 56% of the nation's overall growth over the same time period. Moreover, among the more than 50.5 million Hispanics in the United States, nearly 37 million speak Spanish at home. This audio documentary sheds light on the circumstances of "undocumented" Spanish-speaking obstetrical patients. It probes factors that may be associated with their non-participation in healthcare satisfaction surveys. It aims to generate discussion and research that will enable women's healthcare professionals and policy makers to better respond to their needs.