Video Remote Sign Language Interpreting in Health Communication for Deaf People: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial
Why this work is in the frame
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The current standard of interpretation provision is not efficacious or not acceptable to Deaf patients who communicate using sign language. In-person or video relay interpretation (VRI) sign language interpretation is largely unavailable. There are no clear data on the availability of VRI or in-person interpretation. Given the limited number of available sign language interpreters and the cost, VRI may be more available than in-person. Existing evidence tends to focus on assessing personal preferences of Deaf users regarding interpretation and interpreters' preferences. Although respecting preferences is essential, there is a vacuum of knowledge on how the format of access to interpretation impacts the quality of communication between Deaf persons and health personnel. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to look at the effectiveness of the VRI system in improving communication outcomes between Deaf patients and doctors versus the available standard of care of the usual communication tools, including informal interpretation, lip- or note-reading, and using their mobile phones to contact a formal or informal interpreter, for Deaf patients aged 18 years and older in Bogota, Colombia. METHODS: This is a randomized controlled trial with a total sample size of 216 participants, divided into 2 groups: an intervention group, which receives a medical appointment using VRI, and a control group, which receives a medical appointment using standard communication. Both the Deaf participants and the health care professionals will be blinded to the allocation, as they will not know whether the appointment will involve VRI or standard communication until they arrive at the office. The primary outcome measure will be an assessment of communication using a Doctor-Patient Communication Scale. This scale was translated into Colombian Sign Language following a rigorous cultural adaptation and translation procedure. Furthermore, the database contains key clinical variables and recommendations provided by the doctor during a general medicine appointment. We will compute associations. RESULTS: Recruitment opened on August 24, 2023. As of July 2024, 180 participants had been enrolled. The intervention and data collection were finalized in October 2024. The findings of this study are expected to be submitted for publication in early 2025. CONCLUSIONS: This study will provide rigorous evidence regarding information and communications technology intervention in health care, addressing empirical challenges in using inclusive research designs in public health. In addition, effective VRI models that address the challenges faced by Deaf people will be tested, implemented, and maintained in low- and middle-income countries. A disability-inclusive evaluative tool for quality communication mediated by VRI in health care is also tested. Ultimately, this will lead to evidence-based recommendations for implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in mobile health contexts. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05966623; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05966623. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/64590.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.035 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it