Using Pictograms for Communication

The U.S. Navy sponsors annual Pacific Partnership deployments to provide humanitarian and disaster relief training for the U.S. military, partner nations, nongovernmental organizations, and host nations. Communication between these groups and the local populations receiving medical care is problematic in that sufficient numbers of capable translators are often unavailable or vastly undertrained with respect to medical terminology and practice. In addition, should Pacific Partnership respond to a real disaster, adequate numbers of translators will likely be unavailable as a result of the disaster itself. Consequently, medical providers will require alternate methods of communication previously tested for efficacy and validity. One such method is the use of pictograms designed to represent common medical maladies. To determine whether pictograms meet the 85% congruence level required by the American National Standards Institute, 36 images were provided to English-speaking physician assistants and nurse practitioners for interpretation with three images repeated within the array to assess internal validity of the questionnaire. Of the 33 distinct images, 26 (79%) reached 85% congruence showing that validated images may be a method of communication in circumstances where medical providers and patients speak discordant languages.