Preparedness of small animal veterinary practices to communicate with Spanish-speaking pet owners with limited proficiency in English

OBJECTIVE To investigate the preparedness of small animal veterinary personnel to communicate with Spanish-speaking pet owners with limited English-language proficiency (LEP). DESIGN Cross-sectional telephone survey. SAMPLE Data from 383 small animal veterinary practices. PROCEDURES Telephone surveys were conducted with veterinarians and office or practice managers from a random sample of US small animal veterinary practices in 10 states to estimate the number of Spanish-speaking pet owners with LEP visiting these practices, proportion of practices that used services to facilitate communication with Spanish-speaking clients with LEP, and degree of veterinarian satisfaction with their communication with those clients. RESULTS Responses were obtained from 383 of 1,245 (31%) eligible practices, of which 340 (89%) had Spanish-speaking clients with LEP and 200 (52%) had such clients on a weekly basis. Eight percent of practices had veterinary personnel who were conversant or fluent in spoken Spanish. Veterinar...